


Brooklyn Heat, Summer Jazz

by Zigster



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Confused John, First Time, Happy Ending, Jerome Robbins choreography, John is a jazz pianist, M/M, Modern Day Setting, Mrs. Hudson's Brooklyn Brownstone is a magical place, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, New York/Brooklyn setting, Sexual Tension, Sherlock is a ballet dancer, Sherlock's sexual awakening thanks to John's existence, Some angst, Strong Language, alcohol indulgence and pot smoking, brooding Sherlock, mentions of a recreational club drug, nonlinear storytelling, opus jazz
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-03-31 02:16:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13965189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigster/pseuds/Zigster
Summary: "There was, however, one thing that made it easier to stay on his piano bench every day. One thing that kept John Watson showing up to class on time, every morning at ten with a large thermos of honeyed tea and a conviction to see a job well done. His name was Sherlock Holmes and he was the most confounding and extraordinary thing John had ever come across - the most exotic of birds and the most unattainable of men."A ballet and jazz-centric AU





	1. Summer Heat

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing like Walt Whitman to set the mood. Am I right?
> 
>  
> 
> _An excerpt from 'Brooklyn Crossing Ferry'_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> What is it then between us?  
> What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? 
> 
> Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,  
> I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,  
> I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,  
> I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,  
> In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,  
> In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,  
> I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,  
> I too had receiv’d identity by my body,  
> That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body.

 

* * *

 

 

John Watson liked to improvise. He was very good at it. He saw his entire life as being one long improvised solo he was performing for the audience of the world around him. Whoever felt like paying him mind was welcome to, and whoever decided to look the other way was also accepted. John lived his life the way he wanted it, complete with the gypsy experience of never having settled down anywhere or really owning anything outside of his music and a handful of jumpers. He traveled too much to keep a flat anywhere or to bother with extra possessions and knew enough people in enough cities that finding a place to kip was not much of a hardship.  

 

The hard part came when John found a gig so solid that it lasted longer than a fortnight. To a musician, and a traveling one at that, such opportunities were like spotting an exotic species of bird in the middle of an urban city - they were anomalies. It was a score John wasn't very familiar with - finding something that paid well and kept him busy on a pre-set schedule, almost as if he were living the life of a regular person. The sense of normality that came with steady work always threw John for a loop - he'd grown so used to moving on to something new, something different when the opportunity arose, it physically felt wrong to stay put, as if he were missing some yet-to-be-discovered experience that he couldn't name but yearned to taste. 

 

Subsequently, his appointment at American Ballet Theater had turned into just that - a gig that lasted. He’d originally entered the ranks of the company’s payroll as a substitute for one of their regular in-house pianists. When the man he’d replaced took an extended leave of absence after a difficult surgery, John found himself with a more permanent position and a slightly more stagnant lifestyle. He was happy for the stability of a regular paycheck but the forced inertia felt like a constant itch he couldn’t scratch.

 

There was, however, one thing that made it easier to stay on his piano bench every day. One thing that kept John Watson showing up to class on time, every morning at ten with a large thermos of honeyed tea and a conviction to see a job well done. His name was Sherlock Holmes and he was the most confounding and extraordinary thing John had ever come across - the most exotic of birds and the most unattainable of men.

 

He was equal parts brilliant and arrogant. A rising talent so incendiary it was hard to go a week without seeing his name mentioned in the Times or his picture dashed across the blogs of online ballet aficionados or the social media pages of teenage girls. He was a beautiful idea in an untouchable skin - an unstoppable force wrapped in a delicate shell, and he only cared about _the work_.

 

Sherlock showed up early and stayed late into the night. He rarely took ‘fresh air’ breaks (the cheeky nickname the company used to justify their smoking habits) nor did he seem to eat meals or drink anything other than a fancy brand of sparkling water - he kept no fewer than two bottles of the stuff in his sack at all times. He was a walking paradox and a wonderful distraction for John whose knees would start bouncing with nervous energy everytime he received an e-mail or text alert about another gig elsewhere in the world. John would bite his lip and squirm in his seat over the missed opportunities and then as if on cue, Sherlock would spiral out a series of biting observations about a visiting choreographer or the newest affair in the company during class, pulling John from his inner turmoil. The outbursts never failed to make John smile, even if they were a bit cruel. Sherlock Holmes certainly had no qualms about hurting his colleagues’ feelings. Most of them expected it, in fact, including the ballet masters who lead the company’s classes. 

 

Martha Hudson was the only one who took exception to this behaviour and would always put Sherlock in his place with a few choice words and a _tsk_ of her tongue. It endeared her to John to no end, and he was sure to make his respect and affection for her known. She was the mother he never had and the spit-fire boss he vowed he would never cross. The fear of disappointing her lead him to swallow his urges regarding ever leaving once he'd been given a full-time position. No matter how much he wanted to pick up and go wherever chance took him, Martha Hudson (or Mrs H, as the company lovingly called her) kept his head out of the clouds and his hands continually dancing on the black n' white keys. 

 

Between Mrs H's kindness and the addictive lure of being within Sherlock Holmes’ orbit, John found himself as settled as he ever had been, subletting a friend of a friend’s room in a crowded flat in Greenpoint and obtaining monthly Metrocards in order to financially streamline his daily commute. It was a ghastly realisation. John Watson had become rather normal, and the idea struck him as a bit of a novelty. When was the last time John had a bed to call his own for more than three weeks, or a place in a kitchen cupboard to put his favorite mug, or a corner of a sitting room to store his music? John had trouble finding an answer to those questions, so he stopped trying and made his tea each morning, poured it into his thermos, and commuted to his job in the city, just another cog in the great machine.

 

. . . 

_June_

. . . 

 

Sherlock watched John enter the classroom with an air of casual, hard-won confidence. The leather satchel John carried, bursting with hand-written sheet music, was slung over his shoulder in an inelegant fashion, a thermos of tea was clasped in his left hand, and to complete the perfect portrait of an artistic eccentric John was clearly trying to portray, a pair of round, wire-framed glasses perched lightly on his upturned nose. His worn plaid button down and corduroy trousers were out of place in a sea of lycra and moisture-wicking synthetic leotards, yet he remained inconspicuous in the back corner behind his piano, never drawing attention to himself, while simultaneously being the only thing in the room Sherlock cared to concentrate on when he wasn’t dancing. John had proved to be quite the distraction and Sherlock found he didn’t like that very much.

 

He decided soon after the end of John’s second full week in the studio, when his position became reluctantly permanent, that Sherlock would ignore the strange man with the funny glasses and the plaid button-downs. It was the only option that allowed Sherlock to focus, even if John insisted on being cordial, considerate, surprisingly competent at his job, and always visible the mirror whenever Sherlock looked up towards his own reflection.

 

The fact that Sherlock sought out John’s presence in the room didn’t factor into Sherlock’s assessment, since personal error rarely came into play with his musings. No, John had purposefully sat in such a way that he was always easily spotted in the room no matter where Sherlock stood, and if Sherlock happened to place himself in positions that allowed a clear sight line to John’s spot on the piano bench, well then, Sherlock certainly hadn’t done that on purpose.

 

In Sherlock’s study of John, he found that the man could charm anyone around him. The women, mostly, but the men too. He chatted with anyone and everyone and more than once came away with a new phone number plugged into his mobile or plans to meet up with someone after the end of the workday for tea or happy hour. It was maddening to watch him act so resigned and free with the others, all the while freezing up whenever he spotted Sherlock’s eyes on him in the mirrors. Why was John so stoic around him? It wasn’t like Sherlock would bite . . . much.

 

Perhaps Sherlock's demeanour towards him had caused the man to take pause? It wasn't a surprise to anyone that Sherlock could be aloof and taciturn, so it couldn't have been much of a shock for John. Most people were incredibly thick, but Sherlock didn't think that John fell into the category of 'most people'. Then again, Sherlock had never actually spoken to the man outside of a _good morning_ or a  _play that again_ so maybe Sherlock had overlooked a few things in his assessment. He concluded that ignoring the man would be his best path forward, especially for his flagging concentration, and vowed to refocus himself on the work at hand and not the intriguing man at the piano bench in the back of the rehearsal room. 

 

 

_. . ._

 

 

Sherlock sprawled on the floor, his long limbs extending in every direction, each one reaching farther on the cool wood, seeking any relief possible from the unrelenting heat. A pool of sweat rested languid and still in the dip of his collarbones, the moisture of his exertion clinging to his skin like raindrops on the soft velvet of strawberry leaves. He ran a hand over his forehead, feeling the damp drag across his forearm, pulling at the downy hairs, and wishing so desperately for a flannel or a shirt or some form of cloth to sop up the puddle he’d turned himself into during the course of rehearsal. He internally dammed Mrs H for always refusing to utilize the air conditioning in the summer months, insisting that it was bad for her dancer's muscles. The fact that they would all eventually pass out from heat stroke didn't seem to enter into her reasoning. 

 

There was a patch of light streaming in through the closed window, slicing over his right thigh, the heat of the summer afternoon clinging to his overly sensitized skin. He didn’t know whether to roll towards the feeling or away as a torrent of conflicting emotions raced through his mind.

 

_Two beats too fast on the second phrase. Adjust arm before each turn, keep it low, closer. One-two-three-four-one-two-three-four dip, coupé, twist, arch back, and devlopé. Extend more on the reaching arm. Push back harder into the jump. Keep lines level with Molly's. One-two-three-four-One . . ._

 

He sprang from the floor in a fit of anxious energy, ignoring the tiny gasp of sound Molly gave at being in the path of the sweat flinging from his skin and walked to the windows along the back wall. They were old, double-hung, and wooden, painted many times over the decades and were a nightmare to open, but if they produced so much as a whisper of a breeze to cool Sherlock’s skin, he’d happily exert the extra effort. He heaved once, twice, and the pane flew open, filling the studio with a heavy push of warm air. Sherlock grimaced at the lack of relief but grinned as the satisfying sound of sheet music fluttering to the floor like so many autumn leaves echoed behind him. John wouldn’t be happy that his precious music was no longer in order and that satisfied Sherlock enough. The man had proven to be entirely too organized in Sherlock's view and needed a bit of sanding down along the edges. Sherlock was actually doing him a service, though he doubted that John would see it that way.

 

He turned and resumed his sprawling on the ground next to Molly, his arms reaching up and out in front of him to mark the steps of the piece they'd been rehearsing. Notes of imaginary music drifted past his gaze as he heard the verses in his head. Molly’s thin, pale arms joined his in the air, mimicking the steps with her hands like all dancers did, and the two of them soon descended into giggles at their impeccable timing. Even without spoken counts or music to accompany them, they moved together soundlessly, the muscle memory ingrained deeply within them, the many rehearsals paying off even in this unguarded, gentle moment.

 

. . . 

_August_

_. . ._

 

Martha Hudson was proud to be the current owner and caretaker of a restored brownstone, circa 1895, which sat sentinel on the left-hand side of the park in the quiet Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Despite the street being filled with grand and charming row homes all dating from the same period, hers was one of the few on the block that still retained its exuberant pre-war interior millwork and Victorian-era mantels and moldings, complete with exterior gas lamps, spindled archways, and a grand front hall staircase. Such lavish details were a point of pride to Martha and she took great care in maintaining her home’s original historical integrity. It had become a large portion of her life’s work outside of the company.

 

She’d inherited the unique property from her late husband, an American with a penchant for hookers and blow, whom she’d married on a whim during a drug-fueled weekend of romance and sex in the Florida Keys in 1967. He was an awful husband once outside the heady haze of the bedroom, but his vast real estate holdings that were passed to her, after his death sentence had been fulfilled, proved to be a rather lovely consolation prize.

 

Her keys jangled in her arthritic hands as she opened the front door to her well-loved home and walked into the sitting room just right of the foyer. She placed her small clutch and house keys on one of the many marble mantelpieces the house offered and starred in slight shock at the out-of-place skull that looked back at her from its perch. Considering that she’d taken to moving the skull every other week back to Sherlock’s rooms where it belonged, she wondered why he insisted on installing the morbid thing on the ground floor where she entertained company. After all, there were three sitting rooms in the house, he could have easily picked another one to decorate - or vandalize in this case.

 

“Sherlock?” The boy was suspiciously absent though Martha could hear violin music coming from upstairs. She nodded to herself, satisfied that her charge was safely ensconced in his own world for the evening and went to roll herself a marijuana cigarette with the latest ‘chronic’ her neighbor Jerrold had provided her with - the darling man. She would be needing some herbal assistance to steady herself for the onslaught of verbal abuse her young prodigy would no doubt soon be hurling at her when he learned the news that they would no longer be a two-person household, but three.

 

Martha thought she understood the animosity that radiated out of Sherlock every time he and John were in the same room together, but she didn’t understand why neither of them had acted on it yet. She'd heard rumors, of course, but nothing concrete and Sherlock would never give an inch let alone be chatty towards her in this regard.

 

Part of her reasoning in asking young John to stay with her in her home was, hopefully, to move things along in that area. Yes, the man needed a place to stay that wasn’t a crummy, cramped room in a friend’s flat, but besides that, he needed affection, and Martha also thought a bit of a challenge, just like her other young houseguest. John was a puzzle waiting to be solved and Sherlock did always love a good puzzle.

 

The lighter sparked and flared to life before her lips as she leaned back in her chair and rested her legs on a leather pouf in the solarium of the house. She kissed the tip of the joint to the flame, watching it catch and inhaling deeply, allowing the rich smoke to fill her lungs and sooth the frayed edges of her nerves. She sat there for a good while, staring out at her back garden, planning her words. In the end, she simply decided _to hell with it_ , got up from her chair and went to the front hall. 

 

 _Once more unto the breach,_ she thought as she ascended the quarter sawn oak stairs to the second floor, her hands running over the smooth, curved surface of the balustrade, seeking reassurance.

 

“Sherlock? I have something to tell you, dear.”

 

. . . 

 

 

John stared up at the large, marble arched doorway of Mrs H’s brownstone with something akin to wonder in his eyes. It was right out of a storybook or a Wes Anderson film. The place evoked visions of the past to John, of stovepipe hats and layered skirts, and carriages drawn by horses and lamps lit with gas and fire - actually, that last bit was a reality he noted as he watched a real flame flicker in the lantern next to the door. He’d been around his fair share of grand homes in England, but it was always a bit of a culture shock to be confronted with such history stateside what with all the glass towers and modern architecture New York boasted.

 

The slate sidewalk beneath his feet and the cast iron scrawled railings leading up the steps to the front door landing added to the anachronistic sense of timelessness and he climbed up slowly, taking in the grandeur with a steadying breath before finally ringing the buzzer at the door. He adjusted the bags hanging off his shoulders and the crates of sheet music in his hands as he waited, feeling horribly out of place.

 

What greeted him once the large, arched doorway yawned open was not what John expected in the slightest. In fact, the sight of dark curls and a narrowed, scathing gaze staring out of an impossibly pale and sharp face was so startling to him, he balked in surprise, almost dropping his things.

 

“Jesus.”

 

“Not quite.”

 

“Sherlock. I didn’t . . . you live here?”

 

“Quite.”

 

The elegant man stepped back and with a cheeky, yet graceful, bow welcomed John into what would become his new home. John eyed him with speculation, feeling more jittery by the second. He put down the crates of sheet music before he dropped them once inside the door, not trusting his grip. Mrs H had mentioned nothing about Sherlock living with her, or really anything about her place of residence other than that it was large, old, and had plenty of guestrooms and that John should move in as soon as he could pack his things.

 

The woman, herself, rounded the corner not a moment later, her arms outstretched towards him, face beaming.

 

“John, dear. You’re home.” She kissed him on each cheek and squeezed his elbow, tugging one of two rucksacks from his shoulder and placing it pointedly at Sherlock’s bare feet. “How was it finding the place? Not hard, I hope.”

 

“No. Not at all. Your house is beautiful, Mrs H.”

 

She tutted and waved a hand. “Yes, it is, but don’t feel as if you have to walk on eggshells ‘round here. Sherlock certainly doesn’t. This is a home, John. Not a museum.”

 

Eyeing the gilded floor length mirror that flanked the entire left-hand wall of the entrance way and the fragile-looking wooden spindles framed in mahogany that arched above him made John beg to differ on that aspect, but he was grateful for Mrs H’s reassurance and tried his best to let the tension leave his shoulders as he took in his surroundings.

 

“Sherlock will show you to your room, won’t you Sherlock? My hip is acting up.” She tapped her right side with a frown and then turned on the spot and disappeared behind a set of massive sliding doors. The scratching sound of a needle touching down to a vinyl record echoed through the panels not a moment later and the warbling cries of Edith Piaf’s lovesick voice filled the air.

 

“Well,” John said, feeling every bit as awkward as he most assuredly looked with his skin flushed from the humidity of the day, the weight of his bags cutting into his shoulders, and the topsy-turvy situation he now found himself. Not two days ago he’d been wondering about whether or not a cat would help alleviate the rat problem in his building and now he had a set of keys to an entire brownstone in his hands.  “You don’t actually have to show me around. Just point me in the right direction and I’ll--.”

 

“Nonsense, John.”

 

Sherlock had already crossed the foyer and was halfway up the stairs, the bag Mrs H had placed by his feet slung elegantly over his back by the time he’d interrupted John’s little speech, leaving the man stunned behind him. Sherlock was being cordial. How odd. John grabbed his music and reluctantly followed, feeling cowed. 

 

His room was actually a set of rooms, to John’s immense and utter astonishment. Sherlock had pulled apart yet another set of sliding doors to reveal what looked to be a study, complete with fireplace and a matching set leather chairs, but what took his attention for a spin as soon as he spotted it was the baby grand piano in the corner next to a large floor to ceiling window whose drapes had been pulled aside. Light spilled out over onto the keys, illuminating the dull, yellowing ivory into a glowing white.  

 

“Hudders thought you’d want to practice your music while here,” Sherlock drawled when he saw the look of amazement on John’s face. John was so taken with the piano, he let the slightly disturbing endearment of _Hudders,_ slide.

 

“You mean--”

 

“Yes, John. She set you up in these rooms with the specific intention that you utilize the piano. Though, if you insist on banging out that insipid jazz you’re always going on about, I may have to poison your tea.”

 

“Do you play the violin?”

 

Sherlock actually looked startled at the question, a rare expression for him. He blinked and then nodded, his eyes darting to the case that had been left open on a back bookshelf, his brows furrowing at the sight. Mrs H was rearranging his things again, it seemed.

 

“So this is a music room. Brilliant.”

 

Sherlock hummed to himself and walked further into the room, his hands clasped behind his back. Just in front of him were two five-paneled, dark wood doors on either side of a fireplace with an ornate marble mantel and carved wooden hearth surround. Sherlock picked the door on the right, pulling it open with an exaggerated flourish - being cordial was one thing, but it seemed that Sherlock Holmes could not help being a dramatic git no matter what circumstance. John moved past him with a small nod of _thanks_ and tried his best not to stumble when he felt Sherlock's body heat radiating off him in the confinement of the small space. John didn't dare let them touch as he passed but John felt branded by the chaste proximity, marked as owned by Sherlock’s presence alone. Suddenly, he was short of breath. 

 

“I’m next door.”

 

John’s head turned back towards Sherlock in the doorway, pulled away from the rapid beating of his pulse and the embarrassment he felt at being so obvious. “What?”

 

Sherlock merely pointed at the wall to his left.

 

“Oh.” John stared at the wall covered in oddly patterned wallpaper, wondered what Sherlock’s room looked like, smelled like . . . he shook himself and nodded. “Right.”

 

John cleared his throat. It was hot in his room. He wondered about air conditioning.

 

“There isn’t any on this floor.”

 

John laughed. Sherlock had read his mind.  

 

“The fans work well enough.” Sherlock gestured to yet another door and John opened it to reveal a smaller antechamber, no doubt the closet. Inside sat three upright fans waiting to be used.

 

John shut the door after grabbing the neck of one fan and turned to thank Sherlock for showing him and for his civility but when John had looked back at the doorway, John found it empty, and the door closed. Sherlock had gone.

 

John slumped onto the large bed in the corner of the room next to a window glowing with late afternoon light. The mattress squeaking beneath his weight as every bit of tension he’d been holding in his shoulders started to seep out through his pores and onto the floor beneath him. He’d never been so exhausted from a single conversation before in his life and he’d barely spoken. It’d been awful. Sherlock had attempted to be amiable, the worst of things, and now they shared a bloody wall.

 

Falling back on the bed, John let out a sigh that turned into an erratic giggle. How had he found his way down this rabbit hole and was there any way to graciously find his way out without insulting the generous hospitality of one Martha ‘Hudders’ Hudson?

 

He didn’t think there was.

 

John stared at the ceiling of the room he now supposed to he could call his as the light faded from its walls and turned different shades of tangerine and purple with dusk. He wondered at the intricate plaster pattern of molding along the edges of the walls, hiding the sharp corners from view, softening the space. His eyes drifted south, towards his shared wall with Sherlock, and fell upon a painting of a dark-haired man in an olive grove, the bright colors of summer warm around him, vivid in green and gold. John pictured the man as Sherlock, standing there in the noonday sun, his hair blowing in a slight breeze. Sherlock had always been beautiful to John, and he knew he wasn’t alone in that opinion, but it’d been a while since he’d allowed himself to dwell on such things - that line of thinking was a dangerous one. 

 

John blinked and turned his face around to look out the window. He watched the last of the day’s light sink low beneath the skyline in a final ripple of smoldering summer heat and a small spasm of pain John knew to be regret bloomed in his chest. The memories of the night that had so shifted Sherlock's opinion of John could never be changed and the circumstances that he found himself in at present would do nothing to alter the consequences that had occurred all those weeks ago. Three and a half, to be exact, but John certainly wasn’t counting.

 

The bed was consuming him in a cocoon of consoling comfort he couldn't control. His fingers danced along the pattern of the quilt beneath him, playing imaginary keys as he focused on nothing and yet saw every bit of the past hour float across his vision, taunting and confusing him until he rubbed at his eyes to make the images stop. Above him, the ceiling swam into a swirl of dusky grey and before John knew it, the sweet delirium of unconsciousness was pulling him down into a  dream-filled haze of memories he had tried so hard to keep at bay. 

 

 

. . . 

 

 

 

 

The company was celebrating the final performance of its bi-annual fundraising gala, and everyone was in high spirits, most especially the dancers considering they had earned themselves a long overdue three-day weekend from _The Work_.

 

A few of the apprentices had put together an impromptu pub crawl of sorts to celebrate and the ladies of the group had pulled John along by his lapels, lamenting the ‘lack of cock’ amongst them. John had laughed at the joke, feeling perfectly fine with being objectified if it meant a good time with the good-looking people he’d worked so hard with over the past weeks.

 

At some point, they'd ended up deep underground in a dance club in the heart of the Meat Packing district. John could feel the weight of the humid air pressing in around him, the heat of the bodies on all sides and the endless rounds of shots the dancers provided blurring into a haze of laughter and reckless enjoyment. Sherlock had been amongst the group that night, his tall, brooding figure lurking at the corners of the crowd, surveying all but participating little. John had seen him, on the outskirts of the dancefloor, staring at him, studying him, his eyes wide and wanting, his gaze penetrating and needy. John smiled at him from across the dance floor, his easy manner and confidence compounded with the aid of the cheap whiskey swirling in his belly and he weaved his way towards him. If John were the prey, he was willingly submitting to his fate.

 

“Dance with me.”

 

“There are too many people.”

 

“So?”

 

“I don’t like people.”

 

John laughed, his head falling back on his shoulders with the feeling of freedom in his veins. When he looked back, Sherlock was staring openly at his throat, and John watched as the man swallowed, the movement illuminated by the blue, neon lights of the club.

 

“You like me.” It wasn’t a question. John was bold tonight.

 

Sherlock nodded, his lips parted.

 

John smiled and slipped an arm around his waist, pulling him close. “Good. Because I like you,” he said, tugging them into the sea of bodies.

 

“You prefer women,” Sherlock slurred on the last word, his tongue darting out to lick his full bottom lip.  

 

John tilted his head to the side. “I don’t really care either way. Tonight, I prefer you.”

 

Sherlock looked slightly terrified at that confession, a racehorse about to spook. John backed him into the middle of the crowd slow and steady, his arms tightening around him, their bodies pressed flush together, sweat mingling, hips moving in an easy rhythm.  It felt so good to John, so smooth and natural to guide Sherlock in this silly excuse for a dance considering they were barely able to move with the press of the crowd.

 

The man in John’s arms was all muscle and sinew and long, endless limbs of pale, white skin. It was intoxicating to have him this close, and holding on so tight after all those weeks of questioning looks and endlessly frustrating tension. John leaned in and licked a stripe along Sherlock’s collarbone, tasting the salt of his skin and breathing in the scent of him, inhaling deeply, losing himself. Sherlock’s head tipped forward, his damp hair falling over John’s forehead as Sherlock nuzzled against his ear, his lips tentative and shy against his skin.

 

“You’re beautiful,” John whispered, breathing it against his neck. Sherlock shivered, his head falling to the curve of John’s shoulder, seemingly hiding himself from the rest of the room.

 

They moved together to the oppressive heat and beat of the music, cocooned in each other’s embrace. John smiled as he kissed and licked at the skin he’d long wanted to taste and felt Sherlock’s moans vibrate against his chest, his lips exploring what was available to him. Sherlock was clinging to him, his hands skittering all over John’s back and hips and legs like he was memorizing every bit of the man’s anatomy. John welcomed the attention, his own hands splayed possessively against Sherlock’s lower back, his pinkies dipping into the waistband of his tight jeans and the rest of his fingers playing a frenetic rhythm of notes against Sherlock's spine.

 

Sherlock swayed, his body losing its balance in the crowd and John held on tighter, laughing into the skin of his neck. “Whoa, there. Steady.”

 

“John,” Sherlock breathed, his tongue licking along the shell of John’s ear, making him shiver.

 

“Sherlock.”

 

“I feel--”

 

John smiled and pulled back, enjoying the freedom of the moment. But what John saw when he looked up at the man he’d been holding so tightly rocked John to his core and suddenly, the world turned sideways. Sherlock wasn’t just drunk, he was visibly drugged. He eyes were wild and out of focus, his eyelids heavy with fatigue. The swaying Sherlock had been doing wasn’t just clumsy, intoxicated dancing, it was truly a loss of equilibrium.

 

Sobering at the thought of Sherlock having taken something, or worse, someone having targeted him with a spiked drink, John immediately started to part the crowd, bringing Sherlock with him.

 

“Molly!” he shouted over the music and saw her ponytail flick in recognition of her name. John pointed to Sherlock, worry clear on his face and Molly nodded, grabbing her purse from the booth the dancers had all gathered at, and making her way towards them.

 

She and John exchanged a silent conversation the moment she saw Sherlock’s altered state and immediately flanked herself on the opposite side, helping to hold Sherlock up as he rapidly faded into semi-consciousness.

 

Once outside in the balmy July night, which thankfully held a slight breeze to cool their skin, John grabbed for his phone in his back pocket, pulling up a car ride app.

 

“Molly, did he take anything?”

 

She looked shocked. “No. He would never.”

 

“Shit.” John angrily punched in the address to Molly’s flat, not knowing where Sherlock lived. Recreational drug use on a night off was one thing, but this situation was fucked.

 

“I hate clubs.”

 

Molly nodded. “Well, you know. Dancers.” She waved her hand in the general direction of the entrance as if that explained everything and then her brows furrowed at Sherlock’s state beside them. John was bodily holding him upright and it was a near thing at that.

 

“You don’t mind taking him? I don’t think his upper-class sensibilities can handle my flat.”

 

Molly shook her head and giggled. “Don’t worry.”

 

A black sedan pulled up a moment later and John frowned. “This isn’t the one I ordered.”

 

“Itsfine,” Sherlock slurred, and reached for the car door, his fingers slipping against the handle. John stepped in close and opened the door, asking the driver if he was here to pick up a John Watson and the man nodded. John was too keyed up about Sherlock to care and turned to help him and Molly into the backseat.

 

Sherlock slumped and curled himself around John with one long leg draped over his lap and an arm thrown over his chest as if John were a very large personal Sherlock pillow. Molly couldn’t help but chuckle at the affectionate mess Sherlock had made of the two of them, and John rolled her eyes at her.

 

“He’s drugged, Molly.”

 

Molly's small smile faltered and she turned her head to look out the window, her ponytail curving around her long neck. John felt like shit realising that Molly probably had a few herself and wasn’t exactly in a sober state of mind. He'd also just taken her away from her friends on their night off and was now asking her to play nurse and hostess to one very unconscious Sherlock Holmes. He rubbed at his face and reached the arm he’d rested along the seatback towards Molly’s ponytail, tugging gently.

 

“Hey, I’m sorry.”

 

“I know. Don’t worry.”

 

Molly didn’t turn back from the window for the rest of the drive and John tried to relax his racing nerves by stroking Sherlock’s curls. Twenty minutes prior he’d been picturing a very different end to his evening. That version also ended with a Sherlock Holmes wrapped around him but not quite like this. John sighed and rested his head on the back of the car seat, his eyes falling closed as the car drove up to 123rd and Amsterdam where Molly lived. He’d have to take the subway back to Greenpoint and he’d be taking the long train ride alone.

 

That night proved to be more of a disaster than John originally thought, considering Sherlock’s reaction to him when the company resumed work on Tuesday. Or, his lack of reaction. The man burst into the studio with all the fury and defiance of a soldier entering enemy territory, his aristocratic nose was high in the air and his razor-edged wit sharp on his tongue. He spoke to no one that day other than to insult them, and even snapped at Mrs H for taking too long to explain an adagio sequence, to the astonishment of the entire class. Mrs H smiled at him, declared that his behavior was suspect, and told him to take a ‘fresh air’ break, to which he rolled his eyes. She clapped her hands to get his attention, held his gaze, and within five seconds Sherlock was turning on his heel and heading out the door.

 

He’d returned twenty minutes later with a bottle of water, a petulant expression, and a whiff of cigarette smoke filtering past him. John scowled at the smell, hating the habit. Mrs H continued her teaching without further interruption and Sherlock kept himself in the front right corner, as far away from John as possible, brooding the entire time.

 

When John approached him at the end of class to ask how he faired after he’d left him on Friday night, Sherlock glared at him, eyes blazing and face cool. He said nothing to John, and turned back to his bag, shoving his empty water bottle and a pair of leg warmers into its depths. John scratched at his neck, hovering awkwardly over him, wishing he’d speak.

 

Sherlock didn’t even look at him as he stood and walked out the studio door, ignoring John altogether. Shocked and a bit offended, John walked over to Molly at the back of the studio who was sewing up ribbons onto a new pair of pointe shoes.

 

“Did you see that?” he asked.

 

“Hmm. Is it chilly in here or is it just me?”

 

“What the hell happened after I left?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

John balked. “He was draped over me like a damn octopus in the cab. Now he won’t even look at me!”

 

“Oh, well. I think he’s embarrassed?” Molly shrugged and offered John a sad smile. It did nothing to quell his anger at the ass over tea kettle situation.

 

“He didn’t say anything in the morning?”

 

Molly looked up again, her expression genuine as she drew her brows together in thought. “He was gone before I got up. There was a note on the counter that read ‘thanks’ and a pot of coffee resting on the hob. I thought that was rather nice of him, actually, but I haven’t seen him since. Not until this morning’s class.”

 

“I don’t get it.”

 

Molly shrugged again. “Sherlock’s odd.”

 

“Yeah but--” John let the sentence trail off, any semblance of hope he’ been harboring for the day had long evaporated into thin air thanks to Sherlock’s searing gaze. John had clearly missed something. He felt crestfallen and small as he packed up his things and headed to the third-floor rehearsal rooms, and he hated feeling small. It angered him to know that one moment he’d been so close to having something profound and good with Sherlock, and the next, it was as if the entire evening had been nothing but a dream.

 

If it had been, Sherlock certainly would have been better off. John was worried for him. Who had drugged him? Was it random or had Sherlock been a target? Was it some kind of bizarre rivalry with another dancer or merely a predator out to find a pretty victim?

 

John shuddered at that last thought, hating the images it sprung to mind. He sat hard on the piano bench in rehearsal room 2B, wishing he had time to go brew himself a cup of tea - he needed the fortification.

 

“Here you are, dear.”

 

John looked up to see Irene, a soloist with the company. She was all red lips and knowing eyes as she handed him a tumbler full of what he could only assume to be tea. Bless her.

 

“How did you--”

 

“We’re English. Tea is always appreciated.”

 

John laughed. “Well, cheers. Thank you.”

 

She smirked and clinked her own tumbler with his, and they sipped in companionable silence for all of thirteen seconds before Irene cut right to the chase.

 

“So, what did you do to poor Sherlock?”

 

John spluttered. “Excuse me?”

 

“Sherlock. He’s got his knickers in a twist and we all saw you two leave together on Friday.”

 

“Nothing happened.” John glared at his tea as if it had personally offended him.

 

“Then why, pray tell, is he so upset?”

 

“You know, Irene, some things are actually not your business.”

 

She scoffed at him, waving an elegant hand through the air as if it were choreographed and then dug into the satchel slung across her hip. She pulled out her phone and thumbed at the screen, a wicked little smile crossed her face before she turned the phone towards John, showing him what had so amused her.

 

It was a picture of him and Sherlock dancing on Friday. Well, dancing was a loose term for what it appeared they were doing. Sherlock’s knees were bent, his hips pressed hard against John’s, practically riding his thigh and his head was tucked into John’s shoulder while John licked a stripe along Sherlock’s exposed neck. John’s eyes were closed and he looked wrecked in the best possible way in that moment. It was overwhelming to see an outsider’s perspective and he felt his face flush at the brazen nature of the picture.

 

The image was doused in the heavily contrasting blues and purples of the club’s lights, the sweat on their skin glowing in the harsh colors. The bodies thrashing around them were blurred, leaving him and Sherlock the sole focus of the camera’s gaze as if they were under a spotlight illuminating every grind, every thrust, every bite of their mouths. It was a striking photo, and a damning one.

 

“You can close your mouth now, John.”

 

John blinked and looked up at her. “How on earth?”

 

She flicked the phone away and tucked it back into her satchel. “The camera quality on phones nowadays is a marvelous thing. Would you like a copy?”

 

John almost said yes before he remembered he was supposed to be put out by the invasion of privacy. Irene smiled at his dazed look. “Everyone saw you two, John. So saying it’s none of my business is rather a moot point. The question is, what did you do to fuck it up?” She leaned into his space, resting a hip on the piano ledge.

 

John glared up at her. So much for enjoying his cup of tea. He couldn’t drink it now in good conscience, and that was a damn shame for England. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

 

“Of course I do.”

 

Behind them, the metal door banged and Greg Lestrade strolled into the studio, all salt n’ pepper hair and warm brown eyes with a half-eaten eclair in one hand and a stack of papers in the other. He waved the eclair at Irene and John in greeting and walked over to the front mirror to deposit his things. Rehearsal time was imminent.

 

Irene didn’t move, in fact, she leaned closer. “Despite what you may think, I’m on your side, John.”

 

“Oh, really?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Why’s that?”

 

“Because. I’m a helpless romantic and I like happy endings. Almost as much as I like seeing pretty boys kiss.” She winked, patted the pocket of her satchel where her phone sat, and pushed off the piano, striding to the front of the room to join Greg. John was left behind with a tepid cup of tea in his hands and an uneasy sense of companionship settling in his stomach. He was very much looking forward to the end the day and something stronger than tea to quell his nerves.

 

  
  
. . . 

 _August (awakened)_  

. . . 

 

John woke with a start, gasping and clutching at the bedclothes under him. He raised up from the unfamiliar bed he’d been dozing on, taking in the foreign room around him, wondering where the hell he was?

 

Martha Hudon’s house. _Brooklyn._

 

Yes. Brooklyn. _Sherlock._

 

John turned his head towards the shared wall with the man who no longer felt it necessary to acknowledge John’s presence, the conversation from earlier in the evening notwithstanding, and he crumbled a little at the thought. The dream-memory he’d just experienced left him with a strange, unbalanced equilibrium - a feeling of being slightly off-kilter in the world. He staggered from the bed, suddenly parched and in need of a drink. He threw open the bedroom door and made his way down the stairs towards where he hoped a kitchen would be on the first floor.

 

“Yoo hoo!”

 

John paused on the landing to find Mrs H standing just inside the sliding doors she’d escaped to earlier in the day. “Oh, hi.”

 

“You need something to eat, dear?”

 

“No. Just - a drink. Which way is the kitchen?”

 

“I’ll take you, I was just going to make myself an Old Fashioned. Do you drink cocktails, John?”

 

John blinked at her in surprise. “Yes.”

 

“Lovely. Let’s go sit on the back patio then.”

 

Ten minutes later John found himself with a very strong and very good drink, that was definitely twice its normal liquid volume, but he wasn’t complaining. The night had cooled to a level just below tropical and there was a gentle breeze teasing his hair as he slumped in a hammock slung between two birch trees in Mrs H’s impressive back garden. The woman herself lounged on a small deck that led off the kitchen and boasted a table and set of four wooden chairs. She looked content, a little more so than usual, and John hid a smile wondering if the old bird was stoned.

 

“I ordered pizza for dinner. I do adore Brooklyn pizza. Hope you do too, John?”

 

John nodded and raised his glass in a toast. Yup, she was totally wasted. John couldn’t help but smirk.

 

“The hormonal animosity of youngsters,” she stated two minutes later, apropos of nothing.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“You heard me. It’s what I call it when young folk like you and Sherlock don’t act on your impulses and instead, sling insults or side-eyes at each other till one or both of you go mad. I see it all the time in the company.”

 

“Do you now?”

 

Mrs H grinned over her stylish reading glasses, “Well, not always.”

 

“Just sometimes?”

 

“Yes. Sometimes.”

 

John nodded, satisfied that the woman was probably taking the piss a bit but her intentions seemed to be in the right place. He lapped at the condensation collecting along his glass and sipped his drink, marveling once again at the rabbit hole he must have fallen down to end up in such a place with such a landlady.

In front of him, lightning bugs lit up the garden’s perimeter, a series of flickering fairy lights come to life. Somewhere in the distance beyond the protective borders of Mrs H’s garden, John could hear the sounds of taxi cabs honking and the far-off bustle of an underground train clanking rhythmically down the track, creating a perfect melody to the night and the most beautiful improvised piece of music he’d ever heard. He closed his eyes, laid back in the hammock and took in the experience of a true summer night in New York. He realised how much he’d been needing a home in that moment, and wondered if he’d actually been lucky enough to have found it at last.

 

* * *

End of part 1 

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As always, thank you for reading. Do please leave me some love if you can, and come find me on Tumblr - [Zigster-Ao3](https://zigster-ao3.tumblr.com/)

I'd be happy to share with you pictures of Mrs H's brownstone, Fort Greene, lovely examples of the magical back garden, and Balletlock artwork that I've drawn up to go along with the story. 

 

 

 

 


	2. Whisky Sour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say two parts? Whoops! I meant three. Yay for more Johnlock! *smiles eagerly*

 

 

 

* * *

John’s peace did not last. Sherlock walked through the solarium doors not a moment later, violin in hand, spotted John on the hammock and did an abrupt about-face, heading back from whence he came. Mrs H halted him before he could fully retreat into the shadows and Sherlock scowled at her.

 

“Oh, good, Sherlock, were you going to play? That’s a lovely idea! It’s a perfect night for music. Even John was humming just now. You weren’t going back inside were you, after just coming out in the first place? Did you forget your rosin or something? Your bow doesn’t need it, does it? Just come and give us a little concert as a test if so, I’m sure you’ll be splendid.”

 

She kept chatting until Sherlock gave in and stomped his bare feet onto the dewy grass off the patio just to make her stop with her _‘insesant babbling_ ’. John smirked into his drink. Mrs H certainly knew how to handle the difficult man.

 

Sherlock pointedly put his back to John and faced Mrs H, lounging languid and cool as a cucumber in her chair, before raising his violin and bow into position. She gave him an indulgent smile and gestured behind him towards John in the hammock, attempting to include him. Sherlock ignored her. John sighed.

 

Even in the dim light of the evening, John could see the frustration along the tense line of Sherlock’s shoulders and the defiant tilt of his chin.  He hated knowing he was responsible for that tension and wished he could talk to Sherlock, explain things, or have Sherlock explain it all to him. What happened on the dance floor that fateful Friday evening was fun and brash and flirtatious and wonderful. Comparing that to the abrupt change come Tuesday morning and the murderous expressions he’d been sending him since did not compute in John’s brain. He simply did not understand.

 

There were many unanswered questions from that night and with Sherlock barely speaking to him, John doubted he’d ever get the answers. He dropped his head back onto the hammock and stared above him at the navy velvet sky, void of stars, yet infinite in its beauty. The moon hung off to the right, a calming presence in the darkness, smiling back down at John with its lopsided grin and cratered face. He watched it as the music drifted over him, a fugue, full of the ferocity and brilliance Sherlock brought to all things. Mrs H clapped as he finished the piece with a fermata*, dragging out the note long and slow and painfully perfect.

 

John sipped his drink and blinked away the emotion in his eyes as Sherlock started in on another piece. (“Something sweeter this time, dear. More soft.”) He stared hard at the moon, willing it to give him answers but it remained still, a forever silent sentinel in the night sky.

 

There was only half-melted ice left swirling in the glass clasped in John's palm when he looked down to inspect its contents. He envied it - wanting to melt and slip away himself. The music was cutting into him, pulling out deep-rooted emotions he’d worked tirelessly to keep hidden. How dare Sherlock do this to him without even looking at him, or even being near him. His violin held more power than he realised and John found himself standing from the hammock, free hand clenching into a fist. He needed space. He needing air that did not include the lingering presence of Sherlock and his damn violin.

 

“Going in, dear?”

 

John raised his empty glass in response to Mrs H’s obvious question.

 

“Oh, perfect. Could you refreshen mine while you’re at it? I’m sure Sherlock would love one, too. Gin and tonic, right?” She’d addressed this to Sherlock who nodded once before drifting away from them both as he played, stepping onto the cool grass with bare feet, long toes curling around the soft grass. John watched him go and grinned but it was anger behind the expression, not mirth. He was quickly growing tired of seeing Sherlock turn his back to him.

 

He went to make the drinks, his fingers cramping around the Waterford crystal glasses in his hands. He wanted to punch something - he wanted to fight. Normally, John would push down such instincts and channel that internal anger into playing, but the only piano at his disposal was several flights of stairs away, and Mrs H was expecting a cocktail. John steeled his nerves and returned to the patio and the pain of Sherlock’s music, hoping beyond hope that the slow, deliberate, deconstruction of his ability to hide his emotions would soon be over.

 

If not, there was always whisky. Thank fucking god for whisky.

  
  
  
. . . 

 

The ache of waking with a hangover clung to John's bones the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. The hazy heat of the summer, combined with the dull throb of his head all blended together in a lovely mix of misery. John adored Mrs H for bringing him into her wonderful, whiskey-filled world of history and whimsy, and simultaneously hated her for allowing the torture of being so close to Sherlock and yet not having any resolution on that end to continue beyond their time in the rehearsal studio.

 

John was never one for holding back, but Sherlock was certainly one for avoidance. Every time John worked up the nerve to confront him, Sherlock found a way to dodge or make himself scarce. John would have been impressed if he wasn’t the target of Sherlock's not-so-passive resistance and already frustrated beyond measure.

 

The only solace he had in this new, half-life balanced on a knife’s point was the announcement that they were doing a restaging of a Jerome Robbins ballet from the late 50’s entitled _New York Export: Opus Jazz_. Even the sound of the word _jazz_ made John’s fingers twitch with excitement. Playing classical adagios every day did wear on a person, some diversity was needed, after all. At least as far as John was concerned.

 

Mrs H was thrilled to bring in a member of the original corps of Robbins’ traveling dancers to teach the choreography to the company - Tobias Baynes. The man’s reputation proceeded him, it seemed, as every member of the company inhaled audibly at the first mention of his name. John did a quick search on his phone, not wanting to be in the dark, and found the man’s impressive body of work spanned over five decades in the dance and theater world. He’d written several books and even debuted a series of paintings based on his travels to rave reviews in 1987 at the Guggenheim. Christ, the man certainly did have a reputation.

 

When clapping erupted a moment later, John looked up from his phone and saw the man himself had entered the room, a broad mustache (which, John thought, would be more fitting on a walrus than a man) was his most immediate and predominant feature. He was tall, white-haired and tan as a nut with leathered skin that spoke of the man’s travels more than any internet search could. His eyes were piercing as they scanned the room of new people, assessing all, missing nothing. John knew in that moment that Sherlock would meet his match in this man, and a small, petty part of him looked forward to the uproarious arguments the company would no doubt be privy to in the coming weeks. If anything, the entertainment would serve as a nice distraction from John’s current state of alcohol-drenched depression.

 

John sat up straighter on his piano bench and waited for the grandiose man to introduce himself. The day had taken a definite upturn from its tedium with Tobias Baynes’ arrival and John couldn’t wait for the chaos to ensue.

 

. . .

 

The next week played out rather like what the American Navy SEAL’s lovingly referred to as "hell week _"_ for their recruits. The paces Mr Baynes took the company through were brutal, even to Sherlock, who relished the burn in his muscles after a vigorous day in the studio but was finding that even his body (annoyingly) had limits.

 

“Again!” Mr Baynes shouted, and the group of twelve dancers in rehearsal room 2B put themselves back into formation. They moved as one despite their bodies being unaccustomed to the loose, freeing movement of Jerome Robbins’ choreography. The fact that it needed to look loose didn’t mean it felt that way to Sherlock and his fellow dancers. He pushed and kicked and spun and skidded across the dance floor in his new, flat, white sneakers until he thought he’d rub the fresh rubber right off the soles.

 

“This is jazz, kids. Not ballet. Disabuse yourself of the notion that pretty is the end game. It isn’t.”

 

 _Perfect doesn’t mean pretty_ , was Mr Bayens’ credo.

 

There were five movements to learn and Mr Baynes had yet to show them any by the end of week one. Chunks of choreography were used in the class warm-ups and floor work, but nothing had been organized into a context yet, nothing had been dolled out into parts, nothing had even been set to its proper music. Mr Baynes, instead, lead the classes with vinyl recordings of what he called _Third Stream_ music, which was a blending of jazz and classical into a strange amalgamation of a new genre that was coined in the late fifties. Mr Baynes explained that he wished for the company to soak in the style much like how they soaked the choreography into their muscles because the ultimate example of _Third Stream_ was the music written by Robert Prince for _Opus Jazz_.

 

Mr Baynes proved himself to be a drill sergeant but he was also encouraging in the most emphatic of ways. No matter what he was trying to convey, a compliment or a correction, everything was shouted.

 

“Yes! Exactly, Molly. Good! Now try it again!”

 

“More force, Peter!”

 

“Extend, Sherlock. Use those long limbs. Reach for it. Yes!”

 

He pinched and patted and adjusted and realigned and moved limbs and fingers and heads to where he wanted them. He was extreme and engaging and did not for one minute ever show his age of seventy-eight years during a class and he expected the dancers to do the same. No one sat, no one rested, they gave it their all and Mrs H was utterly besotted with the man by week’s end.

 

John, not needing to be present at a piano that wasn’t being played, did not get the pleasure of watching the great Mr Baynes work his magic on the dancers during that first week, but he’d often stop by between his other classes and sneak a peek at the progress of the group. He loved the sounds coming out studio 2B, and grinned broadly at the brazen, uncharacteristic movement of the dancers within the studio’s confines. It was different, refreshing and fucking brilliant. He couldn’t wait to see it all unfold on stage in rehearsal where he'd finally be needed for live accompaniment.

 

John smiled as the twelve dancers all kicked out to the side with their right legs, arms swaying up into the air as one. The movement was so iconic, so perfectly ingrained in the pop culture psyche of anyone who’d seen _West Side Story_ growing up, or had to sit through a rewatch of the musical on the telly while being looked after by a grandmother or a great aunt. The choreography of Jerome Robbins was unmistakable and that particular move that John had the glory of witnessing first hand was the ultimate calling-card of Robbins’ style.

 

No matter how down he’d been feeling as of late, seeing this movement, this happy, free movement erupting with such joy from the dancers made John smile. He couldn’t help himself, it was a fantastic sight to behold.

 

 

. . .

 

 

Martha Hudson sat back in her lounge chair on her patio in utter contentment, a stream of marijuana smoke drifting out of her mouth with a sigh. Mr Baynes’ tenure with the company was being considered a rampant success. The dancers were working harder than she’d ever seen them for a visiting choreographer and Mrs H did not mind one iota about having to stare at the weathered, rugged, downright roguish face of one Tobias Baynes day after day.

 

The idea to restage _Opus Jazz_ had been a masterstroke, and they’d only just gotten started. Beside her on the teak garden table lay a series of costume designs for the dancers and a bare-bones set for the production that would rely heavily on dramatic lighting cues more than scenery. It all left her pleased as punch, and the new chronic Jerrold had provided her with was doing wonders for her nerves.

 

“Mrs H?”

 

“Out here, dear.”

 

“Ho--wow.” John coughed. “That’s a strong -- erm -- cigarette you have there.”

 

“It’s a joint, John. Call a spade a spade.”

 

John shrugged and sat down. _Okay, then._

 

“I got your text.”

 

Mrs H was busy staring up into the quickly darkening sky and did not respond to John’s initiation of conversation. He tried again.

 

“I got your text.” He said, louder this time.

 

“Hmm? Oh, yes. I wanted to speak with you, John.”

 

“So you said.”

 

“Yes. Do tell me. Have you and Sherlock boned yet?”

 

John coughed again, though this time it was to cover up the fact that he’d just choked on nothing but his own spit and surprise.

 

“Boned?”

 

“Well, I’d be more direct, but I never did like the word ‘fucking’.”

 

John’s hands flew up in the air for lack of a better thing to do with them, as if the visceral response could somehow stop the words escaping from Mrs H's mouth with sheer willpower alone. John’s life had officially turned towards the surreal. “Please,” he said, “please never say that word again. In that context, at least.”

 

Mrs H smiled back him in a daze, her eyes glassy. “You’re blushing.”

 

John sat straighter in his chair and hoped to god this conversation would soon be over. “You’re stoned.”

 

“Well spotted.”

 

John shook his head and stood up from the table, leaving the madwoman behind with her purple haze. He’d been having a perfectly mediocre day and she had to go and ruin that mediocrity with her mothering and pot smoke and it was all a bit much. He needed to be alone. He needed to play. 

 

He made his way up the stairs to the second floor and did not stop his march until he was safely ensconced behind the doors to the music room and the smooth, cool ivory of the piano keys was present under his fingertips.

 

A trickling tease of a melody soon turned into a pounding cacophony of sound. John played until the hairs at the nape of his neck clung together with sweat and a droplet ran down under the collar of his shirt along the line of his backbone to settle at the base of his spine. He played until his fingers went numb from the consistent pressure forced upon them and continued working on muscle memory alone, allowing the music to play him, to use his body as means of creation.

 

He played until his bones ached. It was the only katharsis he could grasp, and he held on like a dying man clinging to a liferaft in a raging sea. To John, music was always the way out, the safe passage to a calm shore.

 

With exhaustion overtaking him, John sagged forward to rest his damp forehead against the forgotten sheet music on the stand and succumbed to the need to close his eyes against the black and white world before him. His fingers idly played soft, sweet notes along the higher registers, chasing his bitterness away. He had worked his frustrations down to a small pinprick of pain pulsing behind his left eyelid. It was easy enough to ignore, and easier still to soothe with the rhythms he was blending. Soon, the pain would be gone and he’d be whole again - armored and steady.

 

Behind him, a floorboard creaked. John’s playing came up short and a stilted trill hiccuped through the piano. He opened his eyes and stared at the wood beneath him, the gold leaf wording of _Bösendorfer_ stared blandly back at him without comment or comfort. He cursed. He breathed, chest heaving.

 

He waited.

 

There was a presence at his back. John could feel the warmth that wasn’t his own move close to him, could hear the labored breathing that wasn’t his own pushed out from flared nostrils behind him.

 

“ _Sherlock._ ”

 

It was a whisper. A confession. A plea. Spoken down to the piano’s keys, as if the caress of the word would ricochet and reach out to the man behind him.

 

John’s eyes fell closed.

 

He waited.

 

A fingertip brushed the small point of hair at the nape of John’s neck, tracing the same line the bead of sweat blazed before it, and every muscle in John’s back arched towards the touch. His skin flared to life under that small, singular sensation. Another finger joined the first, then another, then another, until the entirety of Sherlock’s hand splayed out into the wet hairs at the back of John’s head and pushed upwards to his crown.

 

Sherlock’s hand guided John upright from his slouched position and turned him with a silent demanding pressure. John gladly gave in to being maneuvered like a rag doll on a wire as Sherlock crouched down next to the piano bench and peered into John’s eyes. His fingers remained tangled in John’s hair, almost pulling. John held back a groan at the tantalizing feeling as Sherlock used his hold on John to tip his head back, exposing his neck, pushing John’s limits of his own vulnerability.

 

At this, Sherlock stilled. He sat there, crouched and taught before John, holding him in place. John took in every sensation, every calculating glint in Sherlock’s gaze, willing him to give him an answer, give him anything.

 

He waited.

 

“You’re an idiot.” Sherlock’s voice cut deep into the flesh of John’s belly and buried itself in the marrow of his right hip bone. He blinked back at the man, hurt clear on his features. Sherlock merely stared. Assessing. Always assessing, never answering.  

 

 _You’re an idiot._  

 

John nearly toppled on the bench with the sudden loss of Sherlock’s hand on the back of his head and the abrupt departure of his warm presence. He gulped in air and scrubbed his hands over his face, wondering if he hadn’t hallucinated the entire scene that had just played out before him like some bizarre form of power-driven foreplay.

 

The slamming of Sherlock’s door a moment later gave John proof that he hadn’t imagined it, and John physically crumbled at the realisation. He grimaced and shut the piano lid with forced gentility. He counted to ten before his anger flared red hot behind his eyelids and he bellowed out into the room, “If I’m an idiot, Sherlock, then you’re a bloody coward! You know what this is! You fucking know it!”

 

John didn’t trust himself to remain on the same floor, let alone next door to the man, so he marched himself downstairs and out onto the back patio. Mrs H was, thankfully, nowhere to be found and the remainder of her joint was left innocently on the table. He lit the tip and inhaled deeply, willing calm to overtake him. Willing his anger to leave and his senses to return to their status quo.

 

How dare Sherlock do this to him, the bastard.

 

In front of him, the hammock beckoned and he shuffled forward, exhausted and spent, the need to lie down suddenly the most important out of all his most base and depraved urges. He slept there that night, on the hammock, in the silent, backyard garden under the starless sky. He slept fully and deeply and did not dream. If the sad, crying sounds of a violin trailed across his eyelids and over the tips of his toes at the break of dawn, lulling him into the sweet void of subconsciousness after waking with a start, he did not remember it come morning, and for that he was grateful.

 

 

* * *

 

. 

.

.

*Sherlock's fugue can be heard here: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG7rx3BO6JY)

If you'd like to see NYCB's restaging of _NY Export: Opus Jazz_ , they turned the production into a lovely film and can be viewed here: [X](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BLGWDB6?ref_=imdbref_tt_wbr_piv&tag=imdbtag_tt_wbr_piv-20)

If you're wondering why Sherlock is described as wearing sneakers while rehearsing for a ballet, it's because Jerome wanted this ballet danced in sneakers - street shoes. If you'd like to see the famous image of 'the kick' that John talks about from _West Side Story,_ you can view it here: [X](http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-1961-film-title-west-side-story-director-robert-wise-pictured-george-90124822.html)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- *Fermat: a is a musical notation that looks like a frown with a period beneath it. It normally shows up at the end of a passage of music or at the end the entirety of the piece, and means that you should hold the final note as long as you (or the conductor) sees fit.  
> \- Tobias Baynes is a little easter egg of a character created out of two of ACD originals: Inspector Tobias Gregson and Inspector Baynes. In the original stories, Tobias calls Lestrade a fool, so boo to him (since BBC Lestrade is so utterly wonderful and Rupert is rather dashing) but I love the name Tobias, it means 'Little Toby' and isn't that just adorable?  
> \- Inspector Gaynes (no first name, hence the need for one) only shows up once in ACD canon but he's the most observant of the inspectors that ACD has written, to the extent that Sherlock even praises the man after solving a case alongside him. This is the reason I added in the bit about John thinking that Sherlock may have found his equal in the man, intelligence-wise.  
> \- I know that literally none of the questions from the last part were answered in this part but the story has run away with me and I figured you wouldn't mind some more sexual tension in the interim? Don't worry, Sherlock's resistance, finally breaking this tension, the full staging of the ballet, and perhaps even the reason to the drugging at the club will all come to ahead in the next part! 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading. Part three will be a bit of a doozy (in length) but I'm looking forward to sharing it with y'all! Thanks for putting up with me and my flighty ways.


	3. Familial Threat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've given up pretending that this story has anything less than five parts to it - hence the deletion of the completed chapter number. I'm 99% sure that it's five but just in case it isn't, I left the final chapter tally open. I hope that doesn't upset the few of you who have been sweet and generous with your time and following along as I post, and I hope that the addition of more chapters makes you excited rather than disappointed at the lack of resolution posted in this chapter. 
> 
> We do find out who drugged Sherlock, though! Keep reading to reveal the mystery! 
> 
> The rating has been raised for this chapter due to strong language and some suggestive imagery. (Oooo!)

* * *

 

 

 

 

John’s neck ached in a way that suggested he’d been curled up all wrong in his bed. His right foot was asleep, pressed hard up under his left thigh, and his arms seemed to be wrapped in around him too closely. He blinked his eyes open and stared at the strange leafy green ceiling of his room, wondering when Mrs H had painted the white walls with acres of leaves and sunlight.

 

“You’re outside, John.”

 

John startled in the hammock, his hands falling to grip at the sides before he toppled with his own momentum. He looked down towards the ground and saw Sherlock sprawled in the soft grass with his eyes closed and his head resting against the trunk of a birch tree nearby. One eyebrow lifted as John continued to stare at him in thunderstruck wonder as if Sherlock could tell that he was being studied.

 

“There’s coffee.”

 

John nodded, despite the fact that Sherlock’s eyes remained closed as he leaned steady and silent against the gently swaying tree at his back. John attempted to maneuver himself out of the hammock without further incident but he stumbled on his right foot as he went, the hammock flying up behind him in an embarrassing display he was sure Sherlock did not miss.

His leg stung from the strange position he’d slept in, and he more or less limped towards the teak garden table where a glass Chemex sat filled with dark, amber liquid, its steam swirling into the haze of the early August morning. An empty mug rested beside it, waiting for John to pour himself a cuppa.

 

“Thank you,” he mumbled as he took his first sip. The coffee was hot and fragrant with the flavors of berry and caramel and nutmeg. He hummed his appreciation and sat heavily in the chair in front of him, his leg giving out on him, demanding reprieve.

 

Sherlock didn’t let the silence linger for long.

 

“So, you couldn’t stand another moment of being indoors? Did your gypsy soul finally catch up with you and beckon you out into the great unknown?”

 

“Mrs H’s garden is hardly the great unknown, Sherlock.”

 

John eyed the man as he rose from his position against the tree and stalked forward with all the demanding grace of a lion before coming to stand beside him. He looked defiant and wild in the light of the morning sun, his hair a frizzled tangle of sleep-tossed curls.

 

Sherlock did not deign to respond to John’s retort, but instead, picked up another mug off the table and drank deeply. John watched the rise and fall of Sherlock’s throat as it worked to swallow the rich, warm liquid. If he licked his lips at the sight, he told himself it was because of the taste of the coffee on his tongue and not the indulgent dip of Sherlock’s Adam’s apple moving languid and smooth along his pale, exposed neck.

 

Sherlock caught him staring and John swore under his breath, hoping in vain that he wasn’t flushed. “It’s warm today.”

 

“Yes.”

 

It was all Sherlock said by way of conversation. John’s fingers danced over the rough surface of the thrown-clay pottery in his hands, playing unnamed tunes to the beat of his erratic heart. He waited. He breathed. Sherlock remained silent.

 

After a few torturous moments that seemed to last forever and yet ended too soon, the air left hanging between them became taut and sharp. John shifted in his seat, looking into the freshly emptied contours of his mug, feeling the electric pull from his side where he knew Sherlock stood, wishing he would speak.

 

When John finally gave in and moved to pour out more coffee for them both, Sherlock placed his empty mug on the hard, wooden surface and walked off, leaving John behind him. The Chemex was left halfway off the table in John’s hand, hanging in midair, much like the myriad of unanswered questions swirling about John’s mind on a heavy, summer wind.

 

John didn’t call out to him. Instead, he watched him go. The gentle lines of Sherlock’s back muscles moving and twisting along his spine as he pulled the door handle to the solarium open and disappeared inside, all grace and poise and utter, unfailing, infuriating, upper-class arrogance.

 

“Fuck!”

 

John shouted into the sky, startling the morning doves from their perches on the window ledges of brick and brownstone houses around him. He wanted to smash his mug with his fist, he wanted to throw the Chemex clear across the deck and against the warbled glass of the solarium windows, he wanted to push Sherlock Holmes up against that same glass wall and make him beg for mercy from the unyielding demands of his hands and cock and tongue.

 

He simply wanted.

 

John Watson had never been more keyed-up in all his thirty-two years of life and he knew, without a doubt in his mind, that Sherlock Holmes was in the same exact state. No matter how Sherlock presented himself with his cool, collected nature and acerbic attitude on the surface, John had felt the simmering heat of his skin against his the other night, even if it was only through the pads of his fingertips in his sweat-slicked hair. John knew - he knew Sherlock was just as twisted up in this web of neverending frustration as he was. What he didn’t understand was, why Sherlock kept denying himself. Why was Sherlock Holmes hiding?

  


. . .

 

The intricate black and white, patterned hexagonal tile leading to the foyer seemed to mock him as Sherlock walked barefoot towards the front stairwell with as much composure as his born-and-bred, blue British blood could muster. He told himself that the fact he was out of breath stemmed from spending too much time in the shock of the early morning heat and not the utter, unending frustration coursing through him on a constantly recycled circuit.

 

“You’re slipping, brother mine.”

 

Sherlock stilled on the first step of the staircase, his fingers tensing against the balustrade. He stared down at his hand on the cool, wooden surface, watching his knuckles whiten with strain. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Can’t I pay a visit every now and then?”

 

“Actually, no.”

 

The man across from Sherlock grimaced at his brother’s inhospitable response. “Do grow up, Sherlock.”

 

“Oh, is that why you’re here? To tell me to grow up? Piss off, Mycroft. I’m doing what you asked. I’m keeping my distance.”

 

“Are you?”

 

Sherlock was already halfway up the stairs when Mycroft had bitten off that question and his foot paused in mid-air, hovering over the seventeenth step. He breathed hard, nostrils flaring as he turned with a measured amount of patience that even he was impressed by.

 

“I am.”

 

“May I ask, how was your morning coffee? And which did you find more enjoyable, the caffeine or the company? ”

 

Sherlock’s eyes closed, blocking out the sight of his cursed brother before him. “Go away.”

 

“No, I don’t think I will. I think you and I should go have a little chat. Elsewhere.”

 

“What makes you think I’d follow you anywhere?”

 

Mycroft smirked at his little brother, producing a package from his left breast pocket of fine, hand-rolled Belgian cigarettes, which just so happened to be impossible to find outside of Europe. Sherlock’s eyebrow quirked. Mycroft certainly had his attention.

 

“I have three more packages of these in the car. One little chat with me and you’ll be free to slowly poison your lungs with black tar to your heart’s content. Though you do know how I feel about such habits.”

 

“Is this what we’ve come to? You bribing me for quality time?”

 

“Needs must when dealing with children.”

 

“Oh, and you’d bribe children with cigarettes? Very gauche.”

 

Mycroft’s only response was to sigh and flourish the square package so that the plastic film reflected the light echoing off of the grand mirror in the front hall, temporarily blinding Sherlock’s vision.

 

Sherlock lifted his chin in defiance, marched down the seventeen steps with a flippant air, and snatched the package from his brother’s pale fingers. “Fine,” he gritted through his teeth. “Lead the way, _brother_.”

 

. . .

 

 

The two men sat in woven French cafe chairs outside a creole restaurant around the corner from Mrs H’s brownstone, both feigning relaxed postures. Two matching sets of long legs were crossed elegantly in front of them, taking up large portions of the pavement. Sherlock kicked out at his brother’s bespoke Italian loafer just as he went to take a sip from his tea, causing him to spill the hot liquid down his shirt front, and staining his silk tie. Sherlock puffed out a laugh of cigarette smoke, the satisfaction of a gag well pulled evident to everyone around them.

 

“I repeat my earlier statement, Sherlock. Grow. Up.”

 

“Pfft. How boring.”

 

Mycroft undid his tie from about his neck and dropped it on the table where Sherlock knew it would remain even after they’d departed.

 

“So, you want to tell me again how I’m going to _ruin my career_ if I get myself tangled in any sort of relationship, no matter how unlikely of a scenario that is, and will threaten me with deportation and removal of my work visa if I don’t ‘keep it in my pants’ and ‘play the good little ballerina in perfectly white virgin tights?’”

 

Mycroft narrowed his eyes at Sherlock’s sass but nodded just the same before attempting another sip of his now tepid tea, crossed legs clear out of the way of his brother's under the small table.

 

“Your career is my utmost concern, Sherlock, you know that.”

 

“My career? Not me?”

 

“Aren’t they one in the same?”

 

Sherlock inhaled deeply on his cigarette, hating the sting of his brother’s words and instead, relishing the burn and rush of the smoke filling his lungs. He closed his eyes and let the nicotine seep into his veins, wishing he could be anywhere else but cradled in the clutches of Mycroft’s web at that very moment.

 

“I’m handling it.”

 

“No, you aren’t. Don’t forget that I was the one who helped you pick up the pieces after that disaster of a club night your friends dragged you to. Not only that, but I also have proof of your almost- _colossal_ -mistake thanks to Miss Adler’s photographs.”

 

Sherlock’s eyes turned sharp and fierce on his brother’s face. “Do you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Tell me, Mycroft, did it ever occur to you to figure out who was responsible for drugging me that 'disastrous' night?”

 

Mycroft sat back in his chair, a look of controlled indifference crossing his features. Sherlock knew it was forced. He had him. He stubbed out his cigarette with a flourish and locked eyes with the man he’d once so admired.

 

“It was _Miss_ Adler, brother mine.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“I do hate repeating myself, but I will just to relish the look on your face. Irene is the one who drugged me. I let her. She thought she was fooling me. Giving me a bit of a ‘helping hand’ or whatever it is she said I needed as she handed me the shot of tequila since she insisted that I was head-over-tea-kettle for John in the first place. I watched her slip the pill into my glass and pretended to be too drunk to notice. I. Let. It. Happen, Mycroft. I wanted to feel free from all the goddamn pressure you put me under. I wanted to feel loose. I wanted to live for one bloody evening. I wanted to finally know what it felt like to get fucked and I wanted John Watson to do it.”

 

Sherlock’s voice had risen in volume during his speech and at the final outburst, Mycroft’s eyes widened to a comic degree. He looked around him, at the tiny, quiet, quaint cafe with its grandmothers sipping tea and local hipsters eating pancakes with their parents and glared at Sherlock for causing such a scene. Sherlock scoffed at his brother’s reaction.

 

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. This is Brooklyn. People say fuck before noon on Sundays and life carries on. I assure you.”

 

Mycroft attempted to straighten a tie that wasn’t there. He looked flushed and pallid all at once, and Sherlock grinned at his success.

 

Mycroft didn’t allow his brother’s smile to last for long. “I take it you won’t mind being sent back to England, then? Away from your precious company, and your precious pet? The Royal Ballet has informed me that if you were to apolog--”

 

“You wouldn’t dare.”

 

“Wouldn’t I? I’ve told you before, success at any cost. That was your goal once. Has spending a mere two months in the presence of John Watson changed your motivation in life?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then stop pursuing him.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

It was Mycroft’s turn to smile. “Showing your cards rather soon, aren’t you?”

 

Sherlock flipped a hand through the air. “Please. You have the photographs.”

 

“Yes, I do.”

 

“Is this where you threaten to tell Mummy? Because I can assure you, dear brother, that she is well aware that we _both_ prefer the taste of cock over cunt.”

 

Mycroft’s hand slammed on the table, rattling the fine china in its chipped, mismatched saucers. “Will you desist with that language?”

 

“Which? Cock or cunt?”

 

“That’s it. I’ve had enough.”

 

“Oh no, please don’t go. We’re having such a lovely time.”

 

Mycroft rolled his eyes as he stood from the table, brushing away the creases from his linen trousers.

 

“It is always a chore, handling you.”

 

Sherlock hummed and lit another cigarette. He wasn’t going anywhere.

 

“I say this with great care in my heart, Sherlock. Stay focused. Sentiment is, and always will be, the downfall of every great artist.”

 

Mycroft buttoned his suit and snapped his fingers once. A black sedan rolled down the street not ten seconds later and a leggy brunette with soft waves cascading down her back and over the crest of a perfectly fitted skirt, stepped out of the backseat, phone in hand. Mycroft nodded once by way of a departing gesture and walked off with his thinning hair blowing in the wind. Sherlock fiddled with a curl drooping into his eye and smiled at its thick, unruly nature, thanking whoever gave a shit to care or notice that he did not inherit their grandfather’s recessive, hair-loss gene.

 

 

. . .

 

 

Mycroft’s threats did nothing to quell Sherlock’s interest in John. In fact, it would probably only spur him to seek the man out more than he’d dared allow himself to before. Some sort of latent, rebellious streak left over from his endlessly coddled and carefully cultivated youth reared its ugly, theoretically-mohawked head whenever Mycroft lorded himself over Sherlock’s life.

 

He’d kept his distance from John after the club incident, not because of what Mycroft had said that dark morning standing over Molly’s small kitchen counter with a cup of too-hot coffee in his hand he had no intention of drinking, but because Sherlock had been ashamed of his own brazen nature. He hadn’t expected himself to be that forward, or daring, or . . . no, that wasn’t even it. Sherlock had never expected to want anything as much as he wanted John Watson, and the realisation hit him so hard and so fast he couldn’t make sense of it - he couldn’t cope. And so, instead, he buried his head in the sand.

 

He hid behind glares and feigned hatred and endless learned habitual reactions from his childhood of always being the social pariah. The one child who was ignored on the school ground, or worse, tortured. He treated John like every other bully he’d ever come across. It wasn’t fair, and Sherlock knew it.

 

John was right the other night when he’d called him a coward.

 

Sherlock hadn't been prepared for the overwhelming feelings he had when he was around John, how his pulse would quicken and he'd end up fiddling with his hands, leeching out anxious energy through every fingertip, or how often he’d seek out John's face in the studio’s mirrors with flushed cheeks and bated breath. He surprised himself with how frequently he’d pace back and forth across the floorboards outside John's bedroom door since he’d moved into Mrs H’s house. It’d been easier with John only being around during his workdays with the company, but now, with him not only sharing a roof but a bloody wall with Sherlock, his need to seek out the man had only grown more urgent. 

 

In the end, Sherlock realised that his reactions were more obvious than a flashing neon sign lighting the darkening sky above a sleazy casino in the American West. More obvious than Mycroft's expanding waistline or Mrs H's marijuana habit. He could play aloof, he could play arrogant, he could play indifferent all he wanted, but John knew that Sherlock ached for him and he had accepted his own feelings much sooner than Sherlock had. John was free, and open and, Sherlock hated to admit it, but so utterly intriuging the need to _learn_ him practically burned inside Sherlock’s bones. He wanted to know everything and yet was simultaneously terrified of what that meant.

 

The drugged drink was another point of bruised pride for Sherlock. He thought he’d prepared himself for the reaction his body would have with the drug in his system, he was almost looking forward to his unplanned high. He’d never indulged in such things before and despite his rudimentary calculations of how much alcohol he could handle, he hadn’t factored in the combination it would have with the GHB Irene had slipped him. He should have known, should have realised that he hadn’t been hydrating enough and had barely eaten anything that day which would no doubt affect his reactions to new chemicals entering his bloodstream. He’d been stupid and slow, two things Sherlock hated more than he hated his cursed brother and all his damn rules.

 

Sherlock flicked the butt of the cigarette away from him with a twist of pale his wrist and pulled another from the pack. He was going to make himself sick smoking so much after months of (practically) abstaining but he didn’t care, it helped him think, and Sherlock needed to think.

 

“More coffee?”

 

He nodded at the server and pushed his cup towards her. She filled it, winked at him and walked away, looking over her slight, tanned shoulder at him as she left with a tendril of bleached-blonde hair curling around her cheekbone. He studied her backside, head tilted. Her hips were generous, but that girth only allowed for the tapered quality of her small waist to be accented, creating a lovely hourglass figure. She wore skin tight jeans with Doc Martin’s on her petite feet, and a flowing daisy-patterned top, that Sherlock noticed was purposefully sheer with her red, overly-intricate bra accenting the lines of her back underneath.

 

Shaking his head, he picked up his mug and took a deep gulp of the dark, rich coffee, amazed at how all of that punk-filled, feminine beauty was lost to him. He stared at his ceiling at night not wishing for the soft, rounded peaks of his female coworkers to be cupped in his hands but for the bulging swell of John Watson’s cock to be pushed hard and urgent against his hip bone, between the crux of his legs, the crease of his ass and the secret flesh of his most delicate skin. He wanted the heat of John Watson's saliva-slicked tongue to lick into his mouth again with all the vigor and passion he brought to the piano keys when the frustration grew too much for him and the pounding of his fingers into the cool ivory was his only solace. Sherlock wanted to be those piano keys, he wanted to be played by John in every possible way and found that he no longer hated himself for wanting such a thing. 

 

Groaning at the runaway nature of his thoughts, Sherlock scrubbed at his face and downed the rest of his coffee. He tucked a twenty under the salt shaker on the table before making his way towards the park, needing to stretch his legs and burn off the excess energy of the coffee that was currently coursing through his veins. If he could stay away from the house, perhaps he could hold off the need to crawl under the sheets in John’s room and breath in the scent of his sweat like he so wanted to every time he saw John leave for the day. It was a pathetic fantasy, and Sherlock cursed at himself for being so weak, but part of him just wanted to give in and fold himself into a piece of beautiful, intricate, origami John would cherish and carry around with him in his pocket. Perhaps he would fiddle with it from time to time during the day, and that would be enough for Sherlock. The man was so touch-starved, he'd take anything John was willing to give and yet he knew that if he asked, John would give him everything. It was a staggering a terrifying thought. 

 

As the sun reached its zenith in the blazing August sky, Sherlock sought the shelter of a local theater. He sat in the creaking, antique seats, soaking in the blessed air conditioning for the rest of the day with a bucket of popcorn on his lap that he barely touched, watching a double-feature of two old Hitchcock classics and sipping too much Coke.

 

By the time he made his way home, his stomach was sour and his head ached. He didn’t see John back at the house and he tried not to let that cut into his bones too deeply. He tried to stay calm and collected and indifferent.

 

He failed.

 

. 

. 

. 

* * *

 

Thank you for reading! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Irene is our (sorta) culprit! She really wasn't trying to hurt Sherlock, she just wanted those two boys to bone and well, Irene always did have a slightly warped sense of right and wrong. 
> 
> GHB or Liquid Fantasy or Liquid E is a common club drug that loosens inhibitions and makes you rather randy. It's also very dangerous to mix with alcohol (what isn't?) and both Irene and Sherlock failed to factor in the amount he'd already drunk at the time she'd slipped him her little 'helping hand' pill. Thank you to Tali-Zora (who works in the medical field) for helping me with research and being on hand for all my drug-related questions. :) 
> 
> Chapter four is almost completed. I hope to get it up within the next few weeks. My birthday is the end of April, so perhaps before then! 
> 
> I've been creating some fan art for other stories on here that I love and I'm realizing that it'd be fun to have some illustrations of this story (other than the one that sparked its creation, of course) and I figured I'd leave it up to you guys. What scenes/bits would you like to see illustrated? Then again, if you don't care about such things, ignore me. lol.


	4. Giving In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't stop myself from finishing this chapter and then further couldn't stop myself from posting it. Yay for mutli-chapter updates in one week!

* * *

_. . ._

_September - One week to Opening Night_

_. . ._

 

 

John jogged down the hallway towards the second-floor rehearsal rooms just in time to see the dancers collectively exiting the doors of 2B. He skidded to a halt at the sight and heaved out a disappointed gust of air from his lungs that almost sounded like longing.

 

He’d missed the last leg of rehearsal.

 

That was always his favorite part, seeing the small group of company members and understudies run through everything they’d learned, or worked on, or mastered that day be put to music and danced through with all the vigor of a true performance. The Tuesday and Thursday evenings when his schedule allowed him to sneak up to the second story studios to watch (and listen) to the rehearsals of _Opus Jazz_ was the most brilliant part of his week. The shining light at the end of the endlessly dark tunnel of frustration he had been living in and the only true joy he’d found in New York since that ridiculous disaster of a club night he’d spent with the company. That awful night which had given him a taste of everything he’d wanted on a silver platter and simultaneously ripped it out from underneath him, leaving him to fall face first into the theoretical grim-covered floor.

 

John huffed again, willing his breath back into his lungs and his temper to stay seated. There was no reason to feel this disappointed, he wasn’t a child who’d was told no to ice cream.

 

One final person trailed out of the studio, with a bag slung over his shoulder and a thermos in his hand. Greg Lestrade, a Ballet Master with the company, who was mainly seen around the halls eating French eclairs and making the female dancers weak in the knees, spotted John standing awkwardly in the middle of the hallway the moment he turned from the doorway. He pushed the long locks of his salt-n-pepper hair back off his forehead out of habit and smiled at John with warmth in his deep, brown eyes.  

 

“Ça va?”

 

“Oui, ça va.” John choked out.

 

Greg’s smile turned mischievous as he nodded his head back towards the studio. “Il est dans la pièce.”

 

John tilted his head at the odd statement, his French non-existent beyond the basic conversational phrases and a string of naughty curses. Greg did not explain further, he simply chuckled low in his throat and shook his head at the man, walking down the hall towards him. He did not stop when he reached John but instead patted him on the shoulder and then gave him a gentle shove in the direction of 2B.

 

“Bonne chance, gaitanet.”

 

Too intrigued to wonder at Greg’s odd behavior, John inched his way towards the studio door, feeling oddly like he was about to witness something that wasn’t meant for his eyes to see. When he reached the door and peered in through the small window, he had to hold back from audibly gasping at what greeted him - the sight of Sherlock Holmes’ long, lean body sprawled in a folding chair.

 

His right leg was tucked in towards the base of the chair while the left extended an almost impossible amount out in front of him and a pair of, what looked like, fresh socks covered his no-doubt sore and bruised toes. The socks and a pair of black dance shorts were all he wore, the rest of his body on full, delicious display to anyone who happened to find themselves staring into the studio of 2B.

 

It appeared to John as if Sherlock were melting into the seat of the chair, his arms hanging limply at his sides and his head lolled back, resting on the lower barre behind him on the wall, with acres of porcelain skin inching downwards towards those tight black trunks slung low on his hips. John watched the dip of Sherlock’s Adam’s apple make its way up and down along the pale, sweat-slicked skin of his throat as he swallowed a gulp of air into his heaving chest, and John licked his lips at how indecent it seemed.

 

He felt like a voyeur, dirty and wrong, and yet he couldn’t look away. His hand gripped the door handle and pushed inside without his say so, his feet walked forward across the worn, wooden floorboards without his mental go-ahead and the toes of his oxford-covered shoes stopped inches from the ones of Sherlock’s right foot, pointing out towards him on the floor. John stood before the vision of Sherlock Holmes offered up to the world on a plastic folding chair at the back of a dance studio and couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty at the reasoning or the why of it, only knowing that once seen, John couldn’t stand behind the door that separated them a moment longer.

 

“Hullo, John,” Sherlock said, without moving from his catatonic state, somehow knowing it was John who had interrupted this private moment and was uncharacteristically accepting of his sudden appearance.  

 

John rocked on his heels at the shock of Sherlock’s voice breaking the quiet stillness of the ripe, humid air in the room. The sound was wrecked and debauched and utterly gorgeous to John’s ears. He wanted to play that sound on loop and improvise an entire piece around the resonating depths of Sherlock’s baritone. He’d never been more torn in his life to either sit down behind a piano and compose or to remain where he stood and witness how fate would play out his cards for him.

 

“Care to make yourself useful?”

 

The sheer insinuation of such a statement caused John to take a half step back from the man, having no right to feel so tempted by someone who was practically asleep before him. He licked his lips again, shifting his stance, unsure of how to act or where to look or even how to breathe. How had he gotten here? What exactly had Greg intended when he sent John in here and what on earth did Sherlock mean when he asked about making himself useful while looking like an overflowing cone of decadent gelato that needed the immediate attention of John’s too-eager tongue?

 

“My feet, John.” Sherlock slurred his words with bone-weary exhaustion.

 

John blinked, refocusing. “Your feet. You mean . . . you want me to give you a foot massage?”

 

“If that doesn’t disgust you,” Sherlock finally quirked an eyebrow, the only movement John had noticed the man make. “Dancer’s feet are truly heinous. Bloody and bruised, and broken more often than not. Mine are no exception. Leave the socks on.”

 

John swallowed thickly at the idea of being allowed to touch any part of Sherlock’s skin, bruised or whole, and didn’t hesitate at the invitation. John knelt before the man, feeling a profound shift in their dynamic as he positioned himself on the floor at Sherlock’s feet, the humidity from Sherlock’s overheated body radiating out towards him in a wave. It was a heady moment, and John hoped that Sherlock could feel the definite change in the atmosphere around them - it was impossible to miss and Sherlock was a very observant man.

 

John cautiously picked up one, black-socked foot and rotated it at the ankle, stretching and massaging it in his strong, sure hands, which he was surprised to notice, weren’t shaking like he thought they would. Sherlock slumped down further in the chair at John’s touch, his head lolling from side to side slowly on his shoulders, his throat vulnerable and exposed - permission given, it seemed.

 

It had been two weeks since John had awoken in the hammock in Mrs H’s backyard and was greeted by the sight of Sherlock in the grass with fresh coffee on the table. It was the only interaction the two men had in all that time, outside of the occasional greetings they’d share at home or when their eyes would lock for fleeting, heated moments in the rehearsal studio mirrors. Sherlock would always be the first to look away and John would push his fingers harder into the ivory keys beneath him, pouring his feelings into the piano to keep from bolting through the door and ripping his hair out from finally being driven mad by the man.

 

It was during those times when John would wonder what had ever gotten into him to even attempt to pursue this eccentric creature, who at times, John wasn’t sure was all-together entirely human. What had made him halt his life’s momentum and settle into a bedroom at the top of the stairs in an antique brownstone owned by the most endearing old bat he’d ever met? What had made him forget that his lifestyle was that of a gypsy and that the urge to pick up and move-on was an ever-present tickle at the back of his brain, itching at the nape of his neck?

 

John knew the answer to these questions, he just didn’t understand the why of it all. Sherlock was special, yes. Sherlock was unique. Sherlock was maddening and hateful and sometimes downright cruel and yet Sherlock occupied the space in John’s mind that shouted adventure and daring and when he was around the man, John felt no wanderlust or need to flee, he only felt complete. Like the missing piece of his life’s puzzle, the one that spurred him to search and explore for years and years was finally resting beside him, pulsing in a dull glow in his mind’s eye, telling him he’d found home. Which was ridiculous, he barely knew Sherlock. How many words had they spoken to each other, and how many of those words had even been kind ones?  

 

John closed his eyes with a sigh, breathing out all his quandaries into the heavy, wet air of the room. He let his fingers trail upwards towards the clenched muscles at the back of Sherlock’s calves, kneading into the damp skin no longer covered by soft, black cotton. The exploration felt bold and John didn’t hesitate. Sherlock was allowing this - he was allowing John, kneeling in supplication before him, to work out his hard-used muscles and long-strained tendons of his legs after an arduous rehearsal, and he wasn’t pushing John away.

 

“That feels . . .” The blurry edge of unconsciousness drifted towards Sherlock on a gentle wave as he tried to voice how good it felt to have John work him with his soothing, determined fingers. Sherlock welcomed it, his guilt strewn conscience and Mycroft’s warnings to stay away were nothing but dust in the wind the moment John’s hands made contact with his skin.

 

John grinned at the sight of the lith, wild thing before him melting because of his touch. Sherlock was beautiful and unguarded and trusting John with his body, and the longer he allowed this moment to last the more John wanted to remember this secret, stolen time they spent together. Looking up the long line of Sherlock’s leg towards the exposed skin of his taut, muscled torso, John swallowed thickly, his throat dry as he took in all he could visually consume of the man without actually devouring him whole. No, remembering wouldn’t be a problem.

 

“ _John_. . .”

 

Behind them, a delicate clink of a door being shut echoed through the room, just as Sherlock moaned out John’s name. John’s desire for the man did a skyrocketing thrust into an instant dive of shock at the simultaneous sounds, and fell forward from the force of it all. He rested his forehead against Sherlock’s suddenly tense knee and took in a gulp of much-needed air to calm his racing heart. A small, feminine giggle trickled along John’s spine. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as Sherlock slowly righted himself in the chair, leaving John untethered and hovering awkwardly on his knees at his feet. He turned and saw Irene standing in the doorway, her red lips curling with mischief.

 

“Please, do continue. I’d hate to interrupt what was obviously a rather _enjoyable_ experience for you both.” Irene paused to jut out a hip and force a pout on her teasing lips. “It’s just that the rehearsal for Rubies will start soon. Doubt you’d want the other dancers to see what John was clearly planning on doing next. Those rascals can be such gossips.”

 

“So, you decided to let yourself in and watch,” Sherlock said. John felt him stand up at his side and, with a sigh, stood himself.

 

The air felt tense in the studio. A little too tense to John considering that what had been interrupted was a fairly chaste foot massage, despite where Irene’s mind had taken the proceedings. They were all adults here and Irene had told John on more than one occasion to just ‘do it already’ in regards to Sherlock. It wasn’t as if she was against them being together.

 

John turned his head to take in Sherlock beside him, and all the wind left his lungs. Sherlock looked furious. His eyes were practically burning holes into Irene’s skin from where he stood. It confused John and worried him all at once. What had he missed?

 

Even though the air around them crackled with tension, Irene remained calm and continued to smile. “You think I’m going to tell Mycroft.” She spoke to Sherlock alone.

 

“You’ve tattled on me before.”

 

Irene chuckled and held up her phone as if that explained everything. John was completely lost.

 

“Considering the angle with which I just snapped my latest in a series I’m going to lovingly call, Sherlock and John - The Early Years, I dare say he’ll be rather scandalized if I did.”

 

“Hold up. What’s this? Who’s Mycroft?”

 

“My brother.”

 

“Oh, I didn’t know you had a brother.”

 

Irene’s laughter echoed across the floor. “John, you really are endearing.”

 

“Uh, thanks?” John’s patience was running thin. Why did Irene have this strange obsession with him and Sherlock? It was somewhat disturbing.

 

Irene broke the growing tension in the room with a dramatic sigh even Sherlock would be proud of and tossed the phone into the air. Sherlock caught it easily and opened the lock screen to study its contents. John shuffled forward and leaned over his shoulder. Sherlock allowed it. John couldn’t help his small smile.

 

“There’s nothing here.” Sherlock’s voice sounded surprised.

 

“That’s right.”

 

Sherlock looked up, his brows creased. “You didn’t take any pictures.”

 

Irene folded her arms across her petite torso, her nose high and straight. “No.”

 

“Why?”

 

With another sigh, she stalked forward and grabbed the phone out of Sherlock’s hands with a scoff. “Honestly, you boys are idiots. No, I didn’t take any pictures. Yes, I was kidding earlier. There’s a difference between having a bit of fun, Junior, and just being cruel. I am not _that_ big of an asshole.”

 

She didn’t explain any further, but simply shook her head and walked out of the studio. Sherlock starred after her, blinking hard. If he were a computer, this would be the part where he’d short circuit and smoke would start to pour out of his ears, John thought before the rest of what Irene had just said came flooding back to him.

 

“ _Junior_. . . “ John repeated as he watched the studio door close behind the confounding woman. “What just happened?”

 

Sherlock shook his head, dismissing John’s question and stepped away from him to pace the floor. He ran a hand through his sweaty curls and then froze, having come to a decision. He pushed past John, grabbed his things from where they rested in the corner, shoved shoes on his feet and pulled a hoodie over his head, and left the studio without so much as a nod in John’s direction.

 

John’s hands immediately balled into fists at his sides as he realised what was happening. He ran after him.

 

“Sherlock!”

 

But the man had already disappeared from the second story hallway, leaving John to chase him down an empty stairwell and sprint through a deserted first-floor lobby onto the city street with no clues to follow. John starred up and down the broad avenue, the oppressive, late-evening humidity soaking into his skin like a coating of too much suntan oil. He shivered in disgust and frustration and scrubbed his hands over his face, cursing into his palms - they smelled like Sherlock’s sweat-soaked skin.

 

For the rest of that night, John didn’t hear a single creak of floorboard on the stair or a whine of a door hinge from anywhere inside the massive, old house. It was as if he’d been stranded in the large mausoleum of a home without even Mrs H’s warbled humming drifting through the halls to soothe his worry.

 

Needless to say, John did not sleep well, and at the first signs of sunrise cresting over the endless rows of tenements and brownstones John rose and may his way into work, the need to be in the studio overwhelming him.

 

. . .

 

 

Sherlock did return to the house the previous night but had steered clear of the floor he shared with John. Instead, he curled himself into a tight ball on the chaise in the solarium, like some common rebellious house cat hiding from its disappointed master. He was being a coward again, and he knew it and hated it, but he’d been rattled. Earlier that day in the studio, hidden away from the prying eyes of the outside world, he’d been perfectly willing to give into whatever strange attraction it was that pulsed between him and John, only to be reminded of his damn brother at Irene’s arrival. He cursed Mycroft for ever having sent her to watch over him in the first place. Sherlock did not need a babysitter, especially one who thought drugging him to help him get laid was actually a _good_ plan.

 

He left the house that morning still enshrouded by night’s long embrace, well before dawn began to make its lavender light known to the sleeping horizon. He breathed in the deep scent of honeysuckle growing in wild tangles down from Mrs H’s window boxes and allowed his legs to lead him north to the subway where he’d head into Manhattan without thinking of John Watson’s fingers playing over his skin, pressing deeply into his over-used muscles and bones.

 

He sipped his coffee on the train, watching the smattering of other passengers sway in harmony to the jostle of the tracks, and smiled when the first light of the day greeted him with a warm kiss across his skin as he climbed out from the subterranean depths of New York’s underground.

 

Walking up Fifth Avenue, not yet teeming with tourists or businessmen and women on their way to their glass towers, Sherlock tucked earbuds into his ears to block out all the sound around him and lit a cigarette, inhaling the smoke deeply into his lungs. All he wanted in that moment was to go push his body to its furthest limits like he’d done the day before, and the day before that and the day before that. He wanted to feel that pure, painfully beautiful exhaustion from a hard day’s work of pursuing perfection.

 

The studio lights flicked on slowly, blinking and clamoring to life as he entered and placed his pack and thermos at the foot of the piano in his favorite room on the top floor of the company’s headquarters. The windows up here were large and arched, taking up massive spaces along the front and back walls, creating large pools of glorious light that reached across the floor and warmed his bone-weary toes.

 

These were the moments when Sherlock regrounded himself in his life’s motivation. Where he was free to meditate on the career he’d chosen and the path forward towards his continued success in the niche world he’d slotted himself into all those years ago. The times when he remembered that he’d married himself to _the work,_ and would let nothing else in beside it.

 

Lifting a leg onto the top barre, he bent over, bringing his arm above his head to reach and grab onto his toes, relishing the warmth blooming through his body as he worked and stretched and prepared himself for morning class. He always preferred to be the first one in the studio for classes, to enjoy the silence of the room and the blessed freshness of the air before all those bodies tainted the atmosphere with their sweat and damp clothes and damn bleeding feet.

 

He heard the studio door open, but he ignored whoever else had entered, not wanting to give up the solace and peace he allowed himself during his sacred early morning ritual in the studio. It’d be another hour yet before anyone else was meant to be in the company’s halls, but it wasn’t uncommon for Molly to show up as early as he did some days, wanting to have the extra practice time with him since she was his usual pas de deux partner. But when the piano at his back began to weep out melodic sounds of sadness and solitude, he stilled, his eyes drifting slowly open to focus on the man sitting on the bench behind him.

 

Sherlock cleared his dry throat after a few minutes of watching the beauty of John’s sorrow-filled face morn with the piano’s tune. His hair had fallen into his eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses, tickling along his eyelashes. Sherlock found himself wondering if that bothered him, or if he should perhaps push back the strands of his fringe for him. Would John want him to card his fingers through all that soft blonde hair as he played? Would John let him?

 

“Play me something,” he asked. He hadn’t expected to say such a thing, but once he had found the words he realised he wanted nothing more.

 

John didn’t look up. “I already am.”

 

“Satie is hardly your favorite composure.”

 

John laughed, warm and gentle. “No, he isn’t.” His fingers trilled on the keys, filling the studio with flowery notes of springtime. Sherlock smiled. It sounded like flirting.

 

“Play me jazz, John.”

 

John’s hands stilled. He looked up and locked eyes with Sherlock, no longer facing the mirror but standing at the foot of his piano, his face open, accepting.

 

“You hate jazz.”

 

“Not when you play it.”

 

John colored pink and he didn’t try to hide it. He shifted in his seat and reluctantly broke his gaze away from Sherlock’s, refocusing on his hands beneath him. “Alright.”

 

A silence fell between them. Sherlock waited, and John breathed.

 

Two discordant notes hit the air in a spasm of sound before John leaned into the piano and smoothed out the startling beats into a sweet repeating phrase. He continued filling the room with his aching soul echoing out through the music and Sherlock felt himself moving into the center of the studio, lead by the coaxing, addicting pull of inspiration. He spun and stalked and stretched to the sounds John weaved him through the piano's keys, and allowed his body to move with the music, feeling its push to and fro and up and down and side to side. He improvised along with John and closed his eyes as he did, feeling more free and open than he’d ever experienced since the first time he’d stepped on a professional stage in white tights dancing the role of Albrecht in Giselle with The Royal Ballet.

 

The movements his body were making was nothing profound yet the moment felt like a revelation to Sherlock, a reawakening of why he loved this world and killed himself each day in the studio to be greater, to be the best.

 

Sherlock could feel the piece coming to an end, and listened as John played two chords over and over again, teasing them out into softer and softer beats, dancing between two fingers. Sherlock drifted towards the gentle sound, chasing the last vestiges of his self-control along with the dwindling music. He leaned in down over John’s back to watch his left hand play out the final notes, his arm resting over top of the piano with his free hand balled into a fist at his side to keep from touching John along the point of hair at the back of his neck like he’d done all those weeks ago. Now, he wanted to nuzzle his nose into that same spot and drag his tongue up along the back of John’s ear to taste the hidden skin, Mycroft be damned.  

 

The bench pushed out suddenly and Sherlock stumbled backward as John stood and turned towards him. His face was a mask of pure predatory anger and Sherlock gulped at the sight, not knowing what had occurred in the span of a second between the sweet final notes of the music to cause the strange dichotomy of John’s playing and his current expression.

 

“John--” Sherlock started to say but John was crowding him, pushing him back towards the barre at the wall. Sherlock collided with the barre, the wood pressing hard into the muscles of his back as John surged forward, his chin jutting upwards, giving him the allusion of extra height.

 

“Don’t,” John began, punching the sound out through his teeth.

 

Sherlock watched the play of emotions on his face with an avid fascination he couldn’t help.

 

The next words out of John’s mouth stopped him cold. “Fuck you, Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock blinked down at the man, his mind suddenly zeroing in on his anger with a blinding, irrational rage. “Excuse me?”

 

“Fuck. You.”

 

Sherlock shoved at John’s shoulders, no longer wanting to be cowed into submission. The two of them fell forward before Sherlock grabbed John, twisted him and shoved him back to where he’d just been, giving the man a taste of his own ire. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

 

John scoffed, a dangerous smile on his lips. “Yeah. I would. At least I can fucking admit it. _Coward_.”

 

Sherlock’s face fell at the final word. John was right, Sherlock knew it. He cast his eyes downward and away from John, his breathing ragged and not from the dancing. Sherlock realised with alarming shame that the prickling sting at the corner of his eyes was the telltale sign of tears. He cursed under his breath and shook his head of every emotion he felt, trying to rid them from this body.

 

At the sight of Sherlock’s reaction, all the anger in John slowly began to ebb. It seeped out of him in a self-loathing wave, leaving him feeling lost and unsteady on his feet, despite having the barre at his back to hold him. He looked up at Sherlock with sudden exhaustion in his eyes. He was so tired of this dance, so tired of this back and forth torture. Why were they doing this to each other?

 

John could feel the knee of Sherlock’s right leg pressed close to the outside of his trousers and the hand lying limp at his side shifted without permission, his index finger moving across the sensitive skin of Sherlock’s low inner thigh. Sherlock’s breath caught in his throat and his eyes focused on that singular point of contact, his mouth open, his lips wet.

 

“What are you doing?” Sherlock asked. It sounded breathless.

 

“I’m touching you.”

 

Sherlock’s eyes closed, and a small, pained sound escaped the back of his throat. “Please.”

 

John didn’t know if he wanted him to halt or to continue but there was no way John was stopping once he’d made his decision unless Sherlock expressly told him to. He’d been wanting Sherlock to give in and accept that the electricity between them was something that shouldn’t be ignored since the first day he’d locked eyes with him through the mirrors in the studio all those months ago at the start of summer. He dragged the back of his hand up the length of Sherlock’s inner thigh, letting it boldly crest over the side of his cock in his shorts and up the sharp cut of his hipbone where he reached around to the dip of Sherlock’s back and pulled him forward into his chest and the two of them finally collided together in a gasp of released breath.

 

Sherlock’s head tilted down as John’s tilted up and lips met lips and tongues met tongues in a cascade of overwhelming, mutual want. The kiss was the culmination of an endless stream of reckless emotion that had built up and percolated over the simmering heat of the summer and now overflowed onto the floor of the studio and lapped at their ankles like gentle waves in a tidepool.

 

“Oh, god.” John’s head tipped back, hitting the wall with a dull thud as Sherlock licked his way along the stubble of his jawline and found the lobe of his ear, biting down hard and eliciting a moan from John and a simultaneous jut of his hips. Sherlock answered back with a downward thrust of his own and the two of them groaned that the friction it created against their twin, aching and sudden erections.

 

“I want you, John.”

 

“Oh, god.” They were the only words John seemed to be able to say.

 

“I’ve wanted you--” Sherlock cut off his admissions as he sucked on the lobe of John’s ear and then returned to consuming his mouth. He was ravenous for the man, and now that he’d finally looked over the precipice in his mind and hurled himself into the great unknown beyond it, he couldn’t hold himself back from licking every inch of available skin he could find in front of him. He wanted to learn every freckle on John’s body, study every curve of muscle, and every line in the pads of his beautiful, talented fingertips.

 

Sherlock moaned at the thought of those fingers finally doing things to him that he’d only dared himself to dream about in the darkness and safety of his own room in the blackest part of the night.

 

Those hands were currently digging into the skin at Sherlock’s back, dragging along his ass and pressing his hips further into John’s own, creating a rhythm for them both. It was brilliant and perfect and so completely not enough that Sherlock whined at the injustice of it all. Why on earth had he started this now? At the beginning of the day, a full dress rehearsal day, at that. He didn’t want to open his eyes to his reality, he wanted to keep them closed and filled with the images of John’s hands playing him like his favorite keys.

 

“Don’t stop kissing me,” Sherlock whispered, desperate and needy and not caring in the slightest.

 

Sherlock felt John’s chuckle at the side of his throat where he was currently nuzzling his nose before biting at the sensitive skin. “I have to at some point.”

 

“No. Not allowed.”

 

John laughed again, and it was a beautiful sound and Sherlock beamed for having caused such a reaction in John that he’d make that glorious sound. He immediately wanted to hear that sound again, and often, and always.

 

John’s hands came up to rest on either side of Sherlock’s face, his thumbs running over the sharp crest of his cheekbones. “We need to stop.”

 

Sherlock shook his forehead against John’s keeping his eyes closed, willing for time to stand still in this perfect moment. “No.”

 

“We do. People will be here soon. And I’m going to need a minute to calm the fuck down.”

 

He laughed and Sherlock could smell the peppermint in the air from his toothpaste and taste the sweetness of his honeyed tea left lingering on his tongue.

 

The two men breathed in tandem, their chests pressing against each other with each breath they took as they came down from their frenetic, arousal-drenched high. Sherlock’s forehead remained against John’s as he curled his body down and over him, his arms spanned out on the barre behind them. They separated their hips, Sherlock stepping back on his left leg, creating distance where he didn’t want it but understanding the need to not have a blatant erection when the rest of the company made their way into the studio in less than ten minutes. He wouldn’t dare move from their little cocoon until John willed it, though, and refused to stop nuzzling his nose along the length of John’s, breathing in the scent of his skin and feeling the warmth of his body meld with his own.

Suddenly, John’s hands were on Sherlock’s shoulders, gripping him hard. Sherlock opened his eyes and stared down at a fierce look of determination on John’s storm-cloud face. “Don’t forget this,” he said, shaking Sherlock slightly to emphasize his words. “Remember this.”

 

“John, what . . . how could I--”

 

“You’ll spook. You’ll remember whatever it was that kept you from doing this months ago and if you attempt to shut me out again, so help me, I will--”

 

“I won’t, John.”

 

John looked up at him, his face a torrent of emotion, his eyes deep and wanting. “Promise me.”

 

“I promise.” He wasn’t lying.

 

“Good.”

 

“Now you.”

 

“What?” John tilted his head to the side in an endearing gesture that had Sherlock wanting to kiss him senseless.

 

“Promise me that you won’t spook.”

 

John laughed, and Sherlock grinned because he’d made that wonderful sound again. “Sherlock, you gorgeous, brilliant, fucking idiot. I’m all in. There’s no halfway for me. Don't you know that? Can’t you see that? I'm all in.” His hands were running along the sides of Sherlock’s neck, rubbing gentle circles into the tense, muscles bunched at the nape.

 

“You are, aren’t you?”

 

John saw it for the tease it was. “I so fucking am.”

 

Sherlock kissed him then, hot and wet and fast, branding his skin with his own. _Yes, John Watson. I promise. I’ll remember. I promise._

 

They broke away from each other with tentative steps, John inching his way towards the piano and Sherlock moving to don a hoodie for morning class to help keep his upper body warm. For the rest of the class they would catch each other staring in the mirrors, and shared grins and secret looks through the large, glass pains.

 

Sherlock had reached the age of twenty-six having never wanted to share a secret smile with anyone if he hadn’t been pretending while dancing on a stage in full costume with hot lights beating down on his brow. And now, here he was, standing at the barre in the epicenter of his world and John Watson was sitting behind him sending him a smile over the hood of the piano. It was a staggering and life-altering realisation to know what it felt like to finally be happy.

 

. . . 

 

The schedule for that afternoon found the small troupe of fourteen dancers (twelve cast, two understudies) of Mr Baynes’ revival of _Opus Jazz_ on stage at the theater across the square dressed in their new costumes of flat sneakers and carefully styled street clothes. They looked all the world like a bunch of teenagers heading to a drive-in to catch a double feature in small-town America as opposed to a group of professional and outstandingly talented ballet dancers, and that was exactly what Jerome Robbins wanted.

 

Much to John’s delight, now that they were doing full-dress on stage, the need for live accompaniment was paramount to prepare the dancers for the slight improvised differences the orchestra would make come opening night, which meant that John was called in to play. The music wasn't written for solo piano accompaniment alone which meant John was working with altered variations. Tomorrow, an upright bassist, percussionist and a trumpet player would join him, but for now, it was just John and his black and white keys.

 

Everything about this production proved fascinating to John, but he couldn’t bring himself to call it a ballet, it was something entirely _other_ . Much like the genre of the musical score being referred to as _Third Stream_ as opposed to true Jazz, this ballet needed a new defining word, something transitional and fluid that evoked the singularity of the choreography. John would ask Sherlock if he could think of anything, knowing the brilliance of his mind, he’d certainly have a couple of appropriate words or terms floating around up there to call this moving piece of breathtaking art.

 

John smiled down at his hands resting on top of the piano keys as his fanciful thoughts ran away with him. He may be slightly biased but he didn’t care.

 

They ran through the first three movements with surprisingly little interruption, Mr Baynes only stopping to make changes or alter positioning when absolutely necessary. John would make notes when needed, feeling certain parts of the written music were static to his ears and required a little push here and there. Now that they were in the theater where the performances would be held, things would naturally have to be tweaked, since the rehearsal studios were never an exact replica of the stage, and John figured the music should be no exception.

 

At the hour mark, Mr Baynes clapped his hands, feeling confident in his dancers and called for a full run through. John cracked his knuckles and attacked the music only occasionally diverging from the written notes to keep things fresh. He wished that he could watch Sherlock perform as opposed to having pay attention to the composition before him, but John knew that no matter how long this rehearsal took, tonight would find them both enveloped in the comforting embrace of Mrs H’s Brooklyn home and that thought kept John’s hands flying over the keys with a dangerous grin playing at the corners of his lips.

 

“Wait!”

 

John cut off playing at Mr Baynes’ shout and looked back over the last few bars of music, marking a notation with his pencil, assuming the interruption was another pause for Mr Baynes to give a note to a dancer.

 

“Did you just . . . improvise?”

 

John looked up from his music, pencil poised in his hand, unsure of who had been addressed, considering the room had gone deathly quiet. To his astonishment, Mr Baynes was staring at him. He licked his lips and sat up straighter, the man was rather disarming.

 

“Yes, sir. It’s a jazz piece at its core. The nature of the genre warrants such liberties, don’t you think?”

 

Mr Baynes’ left eyebrow arched elegantly into the silver hair sweeping his forehead. “You certainly have a decided opinion on the matter.”

 

John nodded. “I do.”

 

No one breathed as the two men theoretically circled each other with their words. Sherlock maintained a surprising silence as his discerning eyes shifted back and forth between the piano bench and Mr Baynes’ clasped hands, assessing every nuance of the men’s behavior and yet remaining tight-lipped. This did not go unnoticed by John, who held Mr Baynes’ gaze in unspoken challenge while keeping track of Sherlock’s presence in the periphery of his vision.

 

With an uptick to the corner of his mouth, Mr Baynes’ stoic features slowly morphed into a devilish glint of a smirk that had the entire room leaning forwards, anticipating a Sherlockian response of sharp-tongued ire. What came next surprised them all, judging by the collective gasp that erupted at the man’s firm declaration of, “I agree.”

 

Sherlock blinked in utter fascination at the man as Mr Baynes walked to the piano bench and extended his hand for John to shake. “Your name, young man?”

 

John stood up and took the proffered hand. “John Watson.”

 

“Excellent. Hope you’re used to playing in the pit. I’m putting you in the orchestra for this ballet.”

 

More gasps and a few claps of happy surprise echoed around them. It seemed John’s sass had just earned him a promotion.

 

“Thank you, sir.”

 

“Don’t thank me. Impress me. Shall we get to work?”

 

John nodded. “Yes.”

 

“Good. As you were.”

 

With that, Mr Baynes turned back to the front of the room and John sat back down on his piano bench, attempting (and failing) to hide a smirk of satisfaction from crossing his lips. He glanced up at Sherlock, unable to help himself and saw the man staring back at him, his eyes warm. John’s smile broadened. Sherlock mouthed the words, “well done,” and resumed his starting position. It was hard for John to do much else but smile for the rest of the night, he felt like he was floating on air at the day’s turn of events.

. 

. 

.

* * *

 

  
  
Link to Tumblr post of Opus Jazz imagery: [X](https://zigster-ao3.tumblr.com/post/173169268317/chapter-4-brooklyn-heat-summer-jazz-giving-in)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've made Greg a shaggy-haired, salt n' peppa Frenchman. Guh! *falls over* I'd die. 
> 
> The small conversation he and John have in this chapter goes a little something like this: You okay? Yup, I'm okay. And then Greg alludes to Sherlock still being inside the studio. He also refers to John as a 'gaitanet' which is an endeared form of giatan, which is Gyspy. I have no idea if this is actually a thing, but to endear a word in French you can add either 'et' or 'ette' at the end (depending on gender) and so I kinda made it up. My mother is the French speaker, not me, I just know bastardized, basic vocab. Please tell me if I've failed at the small amounts of French in this chapter and I will fix it, post haste. 
> 
> Erik Satie is the composure they discuss. 
> 
> I'm playing a little fast-n-loose with the timeline of putting up a production/rehearsal schedules. It's been about five years since I was involved in the theater world and a good decade since I was involved in the dance world, so please forgive any inconsistencies. There may also be a union distinction with John being a hired pianist with the dance company and then being 'promoted' to an orchestra position because they would not be under the same blanket employer. But! That's is what fiction is for, right? lol. 
> 
> I'm going to be posting several images of the dancers for NYCB's revival of NY Export: Opus Jazz on my Tumblr for y'all to enjoy. Their costumes actually are street clothes and flat sneakers and the glorious choreography of Jerome Robbins really should have its own style name attached to it, it's that unique. Expressionist Modern Dance just doesn't quite roll off the tongue, ya know? lol
> 
> As always, thanks for reading!!


	5. Pas de Deux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raising the rating one last time. Oh, yes, people. You know what that means! 
> 
> I was hoping to update this on my birthday, but alas, the day after will have to suffice. I hope you enjoy! Seriously, I do, because I was somewhat daunted by posting this *kind* of chapter, if you get me. *wink wink*

* * *

 

 

 

 

“John!”

 

John lifted his head up from the piano and the piece he'd been studying at the sound of a thoroughly overjoyed Mrs H bustling into the upstairs music room. She approached with quick-footed steps and arms outstretched. John gave her an indulgent smile, knowing he was in for one hell of a squeeze.

 

“My dear boy, you naughty thing! Congratulations. I do believe I owe you a slightly larger salary now that you’re apart of the  _orchestra_  for this production. How exciting!” She smacked him lightly on the shoulder before going in for another hug. “We’ll need to update all that nasty paperwork and . . . whatever. Who cares. Where is the drinks trolley, we must have gin. This is a celebration!” She scanned the room, eyebrows creased, wondering why there wouldn’t be gin on every level of her home while also contemplating who to pay to remedy such a blatant oversight. John chuckled and rose from his seat to escort her back to the ground floor kitchen where gin, plenty of limes, and tonic were always on hand.  

 

“Where’s Sherlock? He shouldn’t be left out.”

 

John shrugged. “Not sure, he must still be sleeping.”

 

“At this hour? It’s nearly half noon!”

 

“The rehearsals,” John offered with a sly grin he couldn’t hide. He knew certainly well the reason Sherlock was still snoring away upstairs wasn’t only because of the week’s grueling rehearsal schedule, but because he hadn’t let the man rest till dawn broke across the sleeping sky and brought with it a dash of light to their new reality. A reality in which John Watson could hold Sherlock Holmes in his arms and not fear that the man would run away like some over-excitable racehorse at every footfall or chuckle of red-lipped laughter.

A reality in which John Watson was happy.

 

“My, my you’re in quite the chipper mood.” Mrs H was practically leering his direction as she squeezed a slice of lime into her Waterford crystal glass, filled mainly with gin and a splash of tonic for appearances.

 

John raised his eyebrows. “Hmm?”

 

“Look at you, smiling like that. It’s not decent.”

 

As opposed to  _tsk’ing_  at him or waving her hands in a dramatic swoon, she raised her glass in salute and winked. Martha Hudson actually winked at him. John didn’t know what to make of it, he simply shook his head and kissed the beloved old bat on the cheek before walking around the breakfast bar to start coffee. Mrs H was already two sips into her first gin and tonic of the day, but John couldn’t remain standing for one more minute without the aid of caffeine in his veins. He yawned as he filled up the kettle and added beans to the grinder installed in the pantry.

 

John kept his back turned as he poured the just-below-boiling water over the grinds, if only to hide his permanent and telltale grin from Mrs H, who hummed behind him in contentment with her cocktail and the current issue of  _The New Yorker_  magazine flipped open on the table. He heard her place a delivery order at the bakery around the corner for bagels just as he was turning to leave with his fresh coffee in hand, and gave her another kiss on the cheek in silent thanks before heading out towards the hallway. A bagel loaded with lox and cream cheese sounded like a rather nice start to the day.

 

Ascending the stairs with hesitant steps so as to not spill, John felt a childlike giddiness threaten to overtake him from the inside out, causing him to pause mid-way and force his face into a mask of stiff-upper-lip English calm. It didn’t last. Another two steps and he felt as if he was radiating as much light from his skin as the sun produced in the noon-day sky. He wanted to hum, to sing, to shout out towards the rooftops that Sherlock Holmes was lying in his bed, exhausted and sated thanks to John and John alone.

 

It was an intoxicating truth.

 

. . .

 

The two hadn’t returned to Brooklyn till late in the evening the previous night, the day’s rehearsals running well past dinner. John had wanted to take Sherlock out, ply him with a proper meal, a glass or two of wine or even a shot of espresso to pep him up, and let his own eyes drink their fill of the man over a small cafe table in some quiet corner of their sleepy neighborhood, but Sherlock had shaken his head of sweat-damp curls at the suggestion. Instead, John had followed the man home in a cab. He sat next to Sherlock silent and anxious, his knee practically bouncing off the seat while the air between them crackled with the same fissuring presence of ozone one experiences right after a lightning strike.

 

John watched Sherlock unlock the door of Mrs H’s brownstone with quick, measured movements and stepped inside, eager at the prospect of finally being alone with him behind the safety and security of a locked door. Sherlock kept him on edge as he made his way up to their floor, his fingers trailing behind him on the balustrade, pointing back towards John in teasing invitation. John’s own hand hovered close by, the need to touch Sherlock growing with every passing second.

 

“I need a shower.”

 

It was all Sherlock had said to John in the forty minutes it had taken the two of them to get home. The only communication he’d given him outside of a head nod and the gentle pressure of his large hand pressing into the small curve of John’s back, leading him out the theater’s doors onto the pavement of Manhattan beyond.

 

Listening to the pipes spring to life as Sherlock turned on the taps in the bath was a torture to John. Sherlock had purposefully closed the door to the bathroom after he’d gathered a towel and a fresh pair of pants from his room. The sound of the lock sliding into place echoed throughout the floor like the crack of a whip against a metal railing, loud and reverberating with its finality.

 

John scowled and sat down hard on the piano bench. He felt like a caged animal, waiting for this impossible man to do whatever it is he was doing behind that damnable door. Naked and wet and . . . John groaned as his head fell forward onto the black and white keys, the sound of their disjointed notes smashing together in a perfect representation of the tempest of emotion swirling in his gut.

 

He was fiddling with a melody, something bittersweet and aching, played gently with his right hand when a warm palm touched down to the nape of his neck. John stilled, his eyes closing to the sensation of Sherlock touching his skin.

 

“You’re anxious.”

 

John laughed, it was a strangled sound.

 

“I feel like I’m burning.”

 

“It's warm, perhaps a fan--”

 

“No, Sherlock. I’m . . . no,” John shook his head. He didn’t have the words to describe what this was, what he felt, but it most certainly had nothing to do with the temperature outside the open windows. He turned on the piano bench to stare up into Sherlock’s face, willing him to see how on edge he was, how desperate, and how his need to touch Sherlock at that moment rang out through his fingertips so intensely he balled his hands into fists to keep himself still.

 

There was a single, endless moment as the pair of them took each other in, visualising the night ahead as if it were a chess match with an infinite number of possibilities depending on how they played the board. This was new territory to the both of them, yes, yet it wasn’t surprising and it wasn’t sudden; it was necessary.

 

The rasp of wooden legs against the floorboards cut through the air as John stood from the bench and moved to take hold of the overwhelming man standing before him with soaked hair and open eyes, burying his nose into the crook of Sherlock’s shoulder and breathing in all that beautiful, shower-fresh scented skin. It wasn’t long before his tongue was reaching out to taste that delicious skin, his teeth following suit, nipping beneath Sherlock’s ear and whispering his secret hopes into the shadows at the back of Sherlock’s neck.

 

“John. . .”

 

It was a moan, and a plea all at once. John could hear the worry hidden in that single word and pulled back to stare at Sherlock in the dark room, the sharp angles of his fascinating face lit only by the dull glow of the street lamps spilling in from just outside the far windows.

 

“What is it?”

 

Sherlock swallowed, John watched the bob of his Adam’s apple descend in his throat and willed himself to not lean in and lick at the delicate skin.

 

“I’ve never . . .” Sherlock trailed off, the youth of his soft features telling the rest of the story.

 

John blinked at him, the profound statement taking root in his bones and growing out towards his fingertips with the sudden realisation that John alone was being given permission to witness this vulnerability. To be apart of this chapter-turning moment in Sherlock’s life, the same moment John had thrown away all those years ago in the backseat of a car behind a music hall with the girl he thought he was going to marry before discovering another side of himself. It took all of John’s resolve not to buckle at the knees and end up in a heap on the floor.

 

“But you can kiss,” John said, his mind latching on to the most trivial of thoughts. He knew full well that Sherlock’s tongue had talents beyond that of a novice.

 

“Kissing is a required part of a dancer’s performance, John.”

 

John laughed. “Christ, I think Molly would die if you kissed her like the way you kissed me this morning.”

 

A grin of pure pride crossed Sherlock’s lips before he turned his eyes downward and stared at John’s thumbs rubbing circles into the backs of his own hands. “I’ve never kissed anyone like that, John. This isn’t really my area.” Sherlock frowned at the words, his gaze rising up to meet John’s once more, his eyes wide and almost wild with a thousand thoughts projecting out through their pale, calculating depths. “I’ve never wanted to before . . . I’ve never _wanted_  anyone before.”

 

The hands holding onto John’s felt fierce and sharp, nails digging in deep with determination. Sherlock was willing John to see and feel that this wasn’t something fleeting, that he did not enter into this lightly, that this was important, and real, and necessary.

 

John sealed his confession with a kiss.

 

“Sherlock,” he whispered. “Please let me.” He was moving them backward, towards the door of his room to the right of the mantle that marked the dividing line of their separate spaces. Sherlock’s arms wrapped around John, encircling him in the humid warmth of his water-damp skin. They fumbled and groped at each other in the dark room, laughing into each other’s mouths at every stumble.

 

Sherlock savored the feeling of John’s smile on his lips and each hot puff of laughter against his mouth. He was eager to drink in the sensation of John’s warm body flush with his own, the soft feel of his cotton shirt against Sherlock’s bare chest, and the pressure of John’s perfect fingertips pressing into the line of Sherlock’s spine. He wanted to be an instrument for John to play, a set of keys for him to pull sweet notes from and turn them into an endless rhythm that would echo throughout his body long after John's hands had left his skin. 

 

To Sherlock, the look of a man’s flat, hair-covered chest over the smooth, subtle curves of a woman’s had always been his preference. He had always known and understood that part of himself even if he’d intentionally maintained a measured distance from the people around him, closing his mind’s eye off to such indulgence. The only time he’d ever experienced the fevered embrace of another body against his own was in partnering during class or a performance. And even then it was always the delicate, bird-like bones of a woman’s arms wrapped around him, and the light, pink kisses of a woman’s lips on his own. It never felt quite like anything to him, just the slight sensation of butterfly wings fluttering over his skin. The idea of it was beautiful and sweet, yet the reality was strange and unsatisfying.  

 

Holding John against him with a willing, open mind was a revelation. The strength of him, the ferocity, the barely concealed temper he struggled to keep at bay, caused by a summer’s worth of sexual frustration simmering just behind John’s eyelids. It collectively created a spark of fascination that ignited in Sherlock’s mind. He had been the cause of such emotion, and now he wanted to be the resolution. In a surge of sudden confidence, he pushed John back into the leather chair in front of the hearth, his mind racing down three definitive pathways to his next move.

 

John huffed out a startled laugh as he fell into the soft seat, his eyes alight with excitement and the single, blatant question of  _what the hell are you doing?_ When Sherlock sunk to his knees, all of John’s thoughts fizzled to a crisp, eradicated from his mind by the devastating sight of Sherlock in all his proud, singular beauty kneeling down before him.

 

“Sherlock,” John said in awe.

 

Sherlock tore his eyes away from the rapt attention he was giving John’s trousers and the very distinct outline drawn across his pelvis and hip for only a moment before lifting his long, elegant fingers to bring them to the zip at John’s waist. “I’ve always been curious,” he said with all the measured madness of a scientist dissecting a new specimen.

 

“You can’t tell me you’ve never--”

 

“I never cared to before, John. I was rather busy,” Sherlock shot back.

 

Now that Sherlock was allowing himself this moment, allowing himself to be governed by his instincts as opposed to his mind, he wanted to savour it, to process as much of the overwhelming amounts of information he could as he explored and experienced another man’s body for the first time.

 

When he revealed the tented pants beneath John’s trousers Sherlock licked his lips, the Pavlovian response of saliva pooling in his mouth foreign to him yet not unwelcome. He _wanted_. Desperately. It took him no less than three seconds to pull down John’s trousers and curl his fingers under the elastic of his pants to drag them past his hips, letting loose the erection he’d been aching to see since the first time he’d pressed himself against the man and felt it push hard and wanting into his upper thigh.

 

“Christ.” John dropped his head back against the chair. The sight of Sherlock studying him with pin-laser focus was startling and unnerving and so completely arousing to John he needed to look away just to catch his breath. This man, who had never cared to even look at another man’s penis before, was choosing to give his attention to John, to lavish his affection on John. He couldn't imagine how he had ever gotten so lucky. 

 

A warm, wet heat touched the tip of his cock and John’s head flew up from the leather chair back, his vision landing immediately on the image of Sherlock Holmes between his taut, strained thighs with his eyes closed and a crease of concentration present between his eyebrows as he tasted John’s skin. John had to remind himself to breathe.

 

Sherlock hummed, low in his throat, and John couldn’t help from asking, “What do you think?”

 

“Not enough data,” was all Sherlock said before licking a long, solid stripe up John’s cock, causing the man to buck into the air like a common beast. He rubbed a hand across his face and punched out air through his nostrils, forcing himself to calm down, lest he embarrass himself beyond all redemption.

 

“You’re going to kill me,” he rasped out, his voice nothing but gravel and sand. Sherlock had the gall to grin in response and run his tongue along the lip of John’s erection, pulling back the foreskin with his delicate, pale fingers, revealing his hard length fully to Sherlock’s eyes for the first time.

 

The moment hung in the air, tense and poised as if they were counting the seconds between a thunderclap and a lightning strike. Except, the seconds were lasting too long, their count climbing too high, and John’s mind came back into focus as he cast his gaze downward and realised that Sherlock was frozen in shock and that the hands hovering above John’s damp thighs were shaking with indecision.

 

“Sherlock,” John said, righting his clothes and moving forward in the chair to cup his face in the palms of his hands. “It’s okay.”

 

Sherlock shook his head, refocusing at what lay between them, staring at John’s covered erection as if it were a puzzle that needed solving. “I know.”

 

John smiled at him, feeling like a first-rate fool. “You don’t, and it’s okay. Here, lie back.”

 

They moved together, Sherlock shifting off his heels while John sunk down onto the floor in front of him. He handed him a pillow from the chair, “for your head,” he instructed, and gently pushed the man onto his back on the soft, woven rug.

 

“Would you rather this be on a bed?” John asked as he massaged circles into the skin just above Sherlock’s hip bones. Sherlock shook his head, his damp curls falling along the sides of his face as he lay back against the pillow.

 

“I wouldn’t rather anything, only that this happens with you.”

 

John closed his eyes at the statement, realising once again the trust that Sherlock was laying at his feet without asking for any reassurance in return. John swallowed and leaned forward to kiss his gratitude into the skin of Sherlock’s left hip, dragging the stubble of his cheek and chin along the sensitive expanse of Sherlock’s flat stomach.

 

“You’re beautiful,” he told him, kissing one nipple. Sherlock arched into the touch, his breath staggered and stilted in the silence of the room.

 

“People have told me that before,” he breathed, his voice uneven and faint.

 

John smiled and nipped at the skin beneath his lips, “of course they have.”

 

He dragged his mouth down, hot breath panting over the black pants covering Sherlock’s virgin skin. John looked up the length of the body spread out before him, finding Sherlock’s light eyes easily in the darkness, the heady nature of the moment coming full circle to land on his shoulders in a crescendo of new and intense emotion. It rippled down his back and pooled inside his chest next to where his heart rested, thudding quickly to a tune John suspected only Sherlock Holmes knew how to play.

 

“Okay?” He was asking permission one final time. Sherlock nodded and John didn’t hesitate, he pulled and exposed all of Sherlock to the warm, honey-thickened air of the room.

 

John paused to take in the sight of Sherlock’s alabaster skin, the slight sheen covering his body left over from the shower, and watch the gentle shivers that overcame him, causing his erect cock to bob proudly against his stomach.

 

“Amazing,” John said, staring openly at the man.

 

Sherlock scoffed, “human beauty is a construct, John.”

 

“Shut up.” John leaned forward and silenced him with his lips and tongue and teeth. The moan that echoed out from the man beneath him made John smile against Sherlock’s mouth before pulling away. He wanted to give Sherlock pleasure, and the hard-stifled, ego-filled part of him wanted it to be so bloody brilliant Sherlock would never bother looking anywhere else for satisfaction again. John wanted to ruin him.

 

Just as John was leaning over to take Sherlock in, Sherlock shifted up onto his elbows and stared down at his cock, his attention once again zeroed-in on John and John alone. John arched an eyebrow at him, a smile curving at the corner of his mouth in question.

 

“I want to learn,” was all Sherlock said, and John dropped his head with a groan. This man was going to give him a heart attack sounding so eager and looking like he did with all his strong-willed defiance and vulnerability mixing together to create the impossible combination of emotions that only Sherlock could wear while still holding his head high.

 

John kissed him fast and hard, cutting off those delicious lips from speaking and distracting him further. He dipped his head and took Sherlock into his mouth in one go, pulling deep and long. Sherlock’s hips bucked, uncontrolled and John heard the man hiss out a _yes_  into the room. John smiled around him, his hands moving from gently scratching along the soft hairs of his thighs to cupping at the heavy sac between Sherlock’s legs.

 

Sherlock shifted restlessly beneath John, unable to stay still under the onslaught of the new, incredible sensation. John’s mouth was a hot, unstoppable force of heat and suction that Sherlock could never have imagined ever being prepared for - all he could do was call out John’s name in pathetic pants of exhaled breath, shaking in his skin until John laid a reassuring arm across Sherlock’s hipbones, steadying him, and pushing him back into the soft rug beneath them, causing his voice to choke off in a moan at the restraining pressure.

 

It was sloppy. It was undignified. It was base and raw and debauched and utterly perfect. Sherlock came with a cry and spasm of his hips, his body shivering under the attention of John’s deft hands and wicked tongue.

 

His arms had long given out holding him up and he covered the telling wetness at the corner of his eyes with his palms, pressing deeply into the sockets. Sherlock saw stars burn behind his eyelids. He rolled his head gently from side to side as he came down from the high precipice John had both perched him on and flung him off of, only to catch him at the rocky bottom and guide him into a tide pool of gently lapping water against his overheated skin.

 

Sherlock felt John shift to lay next to him, his fingers trailing along and playing a delicate tune into the damp skin of his stomach. The air around them smelled different, heavy and heated with the combined scents of their sweat and the ejaculate from Sherlock's orgasm. The world around him was sparking with freshly spun kenetic energy, rippling out from Sherlock's body in a wave of new experience. Outside a siren sounded and a dog howled in response, cutting through the surrealness of the moment with a clarifying dose of reality. It hadn’t been a dream.

 

Sherlock had the sudden urge to taste himself in the heat of John’s mouth and sprung from his languid position on the floor to cover John’s body with his own and press all of his freshly discovered skin into the man beneath him. It felt good being bold.

 

“Kiss me,” he demanded, capturing John’s swollen lips with his before the man could even answer. Sherlock lapped into John’s mouth and the odd flavor coating his tongue caused a ripple of sensation to course down his spine and bury itself deep in the long-hidden part of his being that housed his now awakened sexual nature. It felt elicit to taste himself on another man’s tongue and yet Sherlock craved the strangeness of such an act. He wanted more.

 

He wanted to taste John.

 

“Your turn,” Sherlock said, voice overly eager. He smiled as he spoke the words against John’s lips, and felt John’s laughter puff out against his face in response.  

 

John studied him, his eyes wide with wonder and excitement. “You don’t have to, Sher--”

 

“I want to.”

 

Sherlock’s voice was firm, his large, warm hands holding John steady beneath him, willing him to see how much he wanted this, how much he needed this. The humor died on John’s lips and he licked them, his eyes darkening with anticipation. “Okay.”

 

They kissed, decision made, and Sherlock grinned in triumph, wanting to take his time with this new avenue of exploration. He made his way down past the soft cotton of John’s shirt towards the open flies of John’s trousers, hot mouth breathing over the fabric in a tease. He was determined to make this good for John, to make him want more than just one night. John had commented on Sherlock’s skill when it came to kissing, and there was no reason that same logic couldn’t be applied to this situation with a bit of focus and concentration.

 

Sherlock used his mouth and tongue and fingers and teeth how he thought John would like, never once relenting or holding back, determined to make John feel good. Judging by the constant, low-growl of a moan rumbling out of John’s chest, Sherlock suspected he was doing well.

 

Just as Sherlock hadn’t been mentally prepared for the awakening of his sexuality, John had been nowhere near ready for the onslaught of glorious attention Sherlock gave him once he’d ducked his head full of riotous curls between his thighs. All John could do was lay back, hands fisted into the tangles of his own hair, and will himself not to fall apart at the seams.

 

It was a very near thing.

 

. . .

 

John took an indulgent sip of the fresh, fragrant coffee and then placed the mug next to his glasses on the bedside table, meaning to leave the rest for Sherlock. The air in his room smelled of saliva-slicked tongues and fevered, sweat-soaked skin. He smiled to himself as he opened the second window along the back wall, allowing a cross breeze to ripple the curtains on their rods and cast the staleness out into the wind.

 

“John.”

 

The voice came as a rumble of sound from the pile of sheets and pillows and limbs behind him. John turned and smiled at the mess of his bed and the man lying on top of it in a languid line of pale, naked skin. Sherlock stretched his arm out, eyes still closed, his long fingers reaching blindly for John.

 

He smiled down at the impossible man and pulled off his shirt before stepping towards the bed. The familiar weight of his father’s dog tags slapped against his skin as they fell from being caught on the lip of his tee once he’d tugged it off his head. Sherlock opened his eyes just as the light glinted off the dull, aged silver. He had noticed them the night before, of course, and many times before that he’d spied the beaded chain along the back of John’s neck peeking out just above the collar of his shirt. He simply hadn’t had the time to pay attention to them before now.

 

“Your father was an army doctor,” Sherlock stated, reading the insignia on the tags from where he lay.

 

“Yes. So was my grandfather.”

 

“They were both named John.”

 

John grinned at Sherlock’s blunt delivery as if he were spouting off bits of trivia to a class of school-aged children. “Yes, they were all named John.” He left his track shorts and pants in a heap on the floor behind him and slipped into bed.  

 

“You’re the third John Watson.”

 

“Fifth.”

 

“And the only John Watson who didn’t follow in the footsteps of his father.”

 

John nodded, his fingers absentmindedly fiddling with the tags lying on his chest. He’d been a disappointment to his father in more ways than not just continuing on the family legacy of ‘crying God for Harry, England and St. George’ in the military. For one, he was almost certain he would never add a branch to the family tree of continual J. H. Watsons, and the reason behind that very well may be lying before him on the bed in a pool of afternoon sunlight.

 

“Being a musician, and a traveling one at that, isn’t exactly something my father was proud of, no.”

 

“You’ve been successful. There’s pride in that.”

 

John laughed, it was a bitter sound. “Thanks but not good enough.”

 

Sherlock hummed and picked up the tags as John played with a lock of his wild, tangled hair. The two of them were magnetized towards each other, John lying higher up on the pillow, his left arm supporting his head while Sherlock rested in the space beside him looking upwards towards the ceiling, long fingers cradling the silver tags with interest.

 

“You only started to wear these after he died.”

 

It wasn’t a guess, nor had it been spoken as a question needing confirmation. Sherlock knew he had gotten it in one. John remained silent. 

 

“My father is also dead.”

 

John’s brows creased at the sudden confession. It seemed as if Sherlock was attempting to connect with him on another level than just that of sexual attraction and compatibility. It endeared him to John further and he kissed the top of Sherlock’s head with soft lips, whispering condolences into the warm strands of his dark, shining hair.

 

“You’ll never gain his approval, John.”

 

John pulled back, blinking hard. “Thanks,” he said, his voice knife-sharp, the anger and sarcasm blatantly evident.

 

“I only say that because you’ve been searching for his approval you’re entire life. It’s why you can’t garner satisfaction staying in one place for too long. I’m not trying to be cruel when I tell you this, but you’ll never find what you’re looking for leading a vagabond--”

 

“A minute ago I was successful, now I’m a vagabond?”

 

Sherlock ignored the interruption, “--leading a vagabond experience just because your father never approved of your lifestyle or your chosen profession.”

 

“Great. Thanks for the therapy. Can we drop this now?”

 

Sherlock let go of the dog tags as if their weight hitting John’s skin symbolised the tactile end of the discussion. Or at least, that’s what John hoped. He began to untangle himself from the position he’d been lying in, no longer feeling comfortable on the bed. Sherlock sat up, concern painted across his face. 

 

“You should know one more thing,” Sherlock started to say, his voice hesitant.

 

John huffed and ran a hand through his hair. “What?” The bark of a question was as close to snapping as he’d come.

 

“I’m happy you’re here.”

 

It was such a simple thing to say. A kindness John hadn’t expected. He sunk back down into the sheets, all the wind having left his sails in a veritable rush of surprising emotion.

 

Sherlock pushed on, emboldened by the secure feel of John’s weight on the mattress once more. “You’ve made a series of decisions with a countless number of possible variables and divergences over the years. Any one of them could have steered you away from applying for a temporary position with the company that day back in June. Even if some of those decisions have caused you pain in the past, the selfish part of me can only feel satisfaction, because the end result is you with me in this bed, and for that, I’m grateful.”

 

A moment passed. Then two. Sherlock tensed in the growing silence but before he could formulate some vague platitude he knew would be a lie warm arms wrapped around him from behind and Sherlock felt John bury his head into his soft curls. Sherlock swallowed his panic, which had been steadily climbing up his throat, forcing himself to remain calm in the wake of his admission. He curled into the cocoon of John’s arms, his fingers trailing through the pale, blonde hairs of his forearms.

 

“Thank you, John.”

 

A laugh puffed out against Sherlock’s hair. “What the hell are you thanking me for?”

 

“For staying.”

 

That final word seemed to echo out into the early afternoon haze drifting in through the open windows. Those two syllables that were spoken so simply and yet John knew the implication behind them; Sherlock was stating another fact. He was not asking, he knew it as a truth before John even realised it was a possibility. The thought did not make him angry or feel caged, instead, it made him smile.

 

He took a moment to let that feeling land heavy and solid against his chest, sink into his skin and anchor itself in his bones where he knew it would rest without concern. Sherlock wanted him to stay, and John, curled up as he was in the crumpled sheets and the elegant strength of Sherlock’s naked limbs, couldn’t find fault in the notion. He had no intention of leaving anytime soon.

 

“Your legs are impossible,” John said this with a slap to Sherlock’s pale thigh, needing a distraction to break the growing tension. 

 

Sherlock didn't miss a beat. “They only seem that way because of your pitiful perspective on the world. It must be a chore to be so short all the time.”

 

John huffed out a laugh and tugged on a curl of Sherlock’s hair, seeing a satisfying wince in response. He smiled and threaded his fingers through the rest of the sleepy tangles, feeling amazed that he was now allowed to do such a thing. He savoured the thought as if it were the last sips of his favorite scotch.

 

A sense of levity settled over the pair of them. The heaviness from earlier at the mention of John’s father, which had threatened to stain the soft glow of the easy afternoon, dissipated on a gentle breeze behind a flutter of the gauzy curtain.

 

There was a knock at the door. "Yoohoo!" The sound eradicating any semblance of calm in the quiet, warm space.

 

John stiffened while Sherlock sighed and called out, “We’re busy.”

 

“Of course you are, dears, but the bagels have arrived. They're still warm, fresh from the ovens!”

 

She tapped on the door with what sounded like the tips of her nails and then the room fell silent; Mrs H had left as quickly as she'd come. John buried his head in Sherlock's hair and chuckled. There was simply no other way to respond to what had just happened. 

 

John's laughter died off in a contented hum at the feel of Sherlock's warm skin. He nuzzled behind Sherlock's ear, kissing the delicate spot with gentle lips when two long fingers pinched his nipple hard. John yelped and smacked Sherlock's thigh in retaliation. "Oi! Bastard." 

 

Sherlock grinned. "Hungry?" 

 

John licked his lips. "Starving." 

 

 

* * *

 

. 

.

.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peeks out from behind her music stand* 
> 
> Was that okay? 
> 
> Listen, guys, I haven't written a lemon (do we even still call it a lemon?) in literally over five years. I was like 25 and probably drunk the last time I attempted putting sexual times down on paper. So I hope beyond hope that this was satisfactory to y'all and that I did these boys justice with their first foray into the intimate side of their relationship. 
> 
> My nerves are killing me. I now need a glass of wine.


	6. London Fog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now interrupt our regularly scheduled Johnlock programming for a time jump into the past. Please note that the year this chapter takes place in starts in 2008. Sherlock is a young thing back at school in England.

* * *

 

. . . 

_Autumn 2008_

. . . 

 

 

 

Sherlock leaned against the cool, stone walls of what would be his home for the next three years located on a back alleyway someone deceptively and idiotically decided to name Floral Street. The only flowers he’d come across in the cement jungle of theaters and tourist cafes that made up Covent Garden were the peonies on the front desk inside the doors he’s just walked out of a moment ago, and those had seen better days, in his opinion.

 

He closed his eyes and breathed in the scents of the city, the funk of the sewers and the ammonia from the piss no doubt splattered along the alley’s walls and the sweet burnt-sugar smell drifting over from what must be a confectioner’s nearby. None of it reminded him of home and he hated that fact. London was nothing compared to Sussex.

 

Turning his head, he glared at the shiny glass doors of The Royal Ballet’s Upper School boarding house, its strange modern facade an anomaly in the sea of the ornate architecture surrounding him. His mother was behind those closed doors, her long, black coat tailored to her delicate form just visible beyond the seafoam glass. She’d been chatting away with the housemaster for the past twenty minutes, much to Sherlock’s dismay. After the first two, he’d wanted to stick needles into his eyelids just to help pass the time.

 

He sulked against the wall, purposefully slouching, despite what the ballet masters had told him about his posture. He was still too tall for his age, his limbs too long and his hands too large. He felt like a freak in class, his extension uncontrolled and his spins too spastic to be beautiful despite their precision. Those were a few of the reasons he’d applied to the school, and reluctantly allowed the move to London. Needs must if he wanted to be the best, his mother had told him and he agreed.

 

Down the way, a set of uni boys rounded the corner onto the street, their loud, boisterous shouts and hollers echoed through the alley like a shrill call of alarm to Sherlock’s ears. He studied them as they approached, taking in the sight of their broad, muscled shoulders and pink and white striped jerseys, their flushed faces high with the exuberance and excitement of adrenaline no doubt pulsing through their collective veins. Half wore their white collars popped, half wore them down, all were creased through with wrinkles and mud from the pitch. They’d just come from a game and a winning one at that.

 

They passed him by without so much as a glance in his direction, as if he were nothing but a smudge on the wall behind him. Sherlock’s eyes followed the final boy in the group, the one who lingered in the back with a secret smile of triumph across his lips and his fisted hands humbly shoved into his pockets. He was happy for his team, but it was clear to Sherlock that this boy, this slight, sandy-haired young man was the one who’d scored the winning goal. It was obvious.

 

“Oi! Pints on me!” The one at the front shouted and Sherlock saw the slight boy at the back nod, agreeable and unobtrusive to the others. To his shock, the boy turned and stared at Sherlock, leaning against the wall with his hips jutted forward and his arms crossed. Their eyes locked for a second, two, three, it was odd. None of them had noticed Sherlock before yet this boy, this quiet, confident young man spotted him against the wall and found it necessary to turn his head and smile at him.

 

Sherlock blinked, breaking the spell. The boy faced forward once more, shaking his head back and forth - Sherlock realised he was laughing. Laughing at what? Him? He pushed away from the wall and shouted, “Hey!”

 

The boy stopped and turned, the rest of the group continuing around the corner at the end of the street. He lifted an eyebrow at Sherlock, a smirk clear on his face. It didn’t look cruel, however, and that startled Sherlock. Was he just being kind? Friendly? Flirtatious?

The strange young man winked and then he was gone; jogging off to find his mates on their way to their celebrations. Sherlock was flummoxed by the entire experience, and he hated feeling that way.

 

“Interesting,” he said to the air, looking at the space where the boy had been. He felt bereft of an opportunity though he couldn’t fathom why since friendship had never been on Sherlock’s radar.

 

“What’s interesting?”

 

His mother was standing behind him, her leather gloves draped in one, slender hand with elegant poise. She arched a delicate eyebrow at her son and pursed her bow-red lips in question. Sherlocked smiled. “Nothing. Just an observation.”

 

“Oh, of course.” She twined her arm through Sherlock’s elbow with ease and squeezed. “Shall we?”

 

Sherlock nodded, contented to carry on with his day and leave the ghost of feelings he’d experienced back in the alleyway where they belonged.

 

. . .

 

When in London, Siobhan Holmes always insisted on having tea at The Criterion on Piccadilly. Her mother had taken her there for tea and her mother’s mother had taken her before that, it was a tradition in the family and probably the only tradition Siobhan ever bothered following in her life.

 

She placed her gloves and hat on the table, expecting the waiter to pick up both for her and rest them on a nearby hook. When this action was accomplished with relative ease in an acceptable span of time, she smiled, feeling the day had finally settled into place. Her two boys sat before her, one with perfect posture and bespoke waistcoat, the other with a scowl and a slouch. She nudged Sherlock’s foot beneath the table. He perked up a centimeter in response.

 

“Mycroft, are you sure I can’t convince you to come back to Sussex with me? Your father misses you.”

 

Sherlock watched as Mycroft attempted to hide a perfunctory eye roll from their mother. He failed.

 

“I’m afraid not, mummy. I am needed back at Downing Street as soon as we finish here.”

 

“ _Finish_? Am I to believe you consider the rare amount of quality time we spend together to as a family to rank no higher than the tedium of a daily briefing?”

 

Sherlock attempted to hold back his smirk of amusement but ended up simply snorting into his tea. His mother, of course, noticed. “Sherlock. Sit. Up.” He did, too pleased to sulk any longer.

 

Mycroft was straightening his silk tie. “I don’t believe I implied anything of the sort, mummy.”

 

“Good. Then would you please?” She held up her teacup, expectant. Mycroft dutifully picked up the silver pot from the middle of the table, covered in rich, white linen, and poured her a fresh cup.  He then took two biscuits and a marmalade and bacon sandwich from the tiered tray, ignoring Sherlock’s continual snickering.

 

“So, Sherlock. Make any new _friends_ at the dormitories yet?” Mycroft asked, grinning as he nibbled at his tea-soaked biscuit.

 

Sherlock’s face fell and he looked at his empty plate. “No.”

 

“Pity you’re not more sociable.”

 

Both Sherlock and Siobhan reacted to the statement, but Sherlock beat his mother in response. “I suppose having _friends_ got you to where you are today.”

 

Mycroft curled his lip at his younger brother. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

 

Sherlock grinned back, satisfied. “Then why should I bother if you didn’t?”

 

The flash of a memory to an hour before on Floral street crossed Sherlock’s mind. Warm lips forming into an inviting smile. Broad shoulders and soft, blonde hair. The boy who was both charmingly humble and surprisingly confident staring back at him when no one else ever bothered looking. Sherlock wondering what it would be like to be someone’s friend . . .

 

“--wouldn’t you say, Sherlock?”

 

Sherlock looked up. His mother had asked him a question he hadn’t heard. He blinked, shocked at himself and quickly fished for an ambiguous answer.

 

“There is a large gap between certainty and an educated guess, mummy.”

 

His mother smiled at him, indulgent as always. He figured he’d given her both an answer she was happy to hear and an appropriate response to whatever question he’d been asked. Afternoon tea continued without any other daydreaming incidents.

 

Sherlock wondered why he and his brother always insisted that friendship and adhering to social norms were below them. He’d always had Mycroft growing up as a confidant and that was enough for Sherlock. Though now, away at school and Mycroft elbows deep in his bootlicking on Downing Street, there was little time for brotherly affection to fill the void of friendship. Their conversations were no longer conspiratorial but contentious. Their comments to each other more biting than humorous, and Sherlock puzzled over what was happening to them to cause the rift.

 

His mother, as always, chose to ignore any animosity she witnessed between her children, instead focusing on the good and never lingering on the bad. She was encouraging in that way, and yet willingly ignorant of the effects such complacency caused. Sherlock watched her sip her tea with her eyes taking in everything around her over the rim of her cup. He could see her cataloging colors and fabrics and shadow patterns thrown by the light cast through the crystal water glasses on the table, her artist eye never once at rest. She was fascinating to observe for this reason, her brain never ceasing, much like Sherlock’s, and he always found comfort in watching his mother gather data and file it away however she pleased up in her brilliant mind. He loved that he was like her in this regard and ached to find more similarities between them.

 

The one glaring dissimilarity between the two of them was Sherlock’s competitive need to remain solitary. He had seen his brother over the years grow tall, proud and successful employing the same tactic and found no reason not to follow in his footsteps in hopes of achieving the same end. It was like a game to him, a strange, alienating game where he allowed himself to be outcast from society and relished the strength he found in being content with his own solitude.

 

Yet, that boy. That warm smile and that soft bit of fringe that blew into his eyes as he turned back towards his mates . . . that quick, instant moment of connection he felt had been utterly foreign. The last time he’d ever felt a connection with someone outside of his immediate family had been as a child, holding a wooden sword and standing in a scuttled canoe on a lake shore near his home. A neighbor, another little boy his age, had come running down the rocky shore to him, eyes bright and smile red with the sickly sweet stick of too much candy and Sherlock hadn’t even hesitated in asking him to play.

 

Sherlock shook his head of such fancies. How he’d fallen down such a melancholy path of memories, he didn't know but he was determined to shake himself free of the unwanted thoughts. He didn’t need anyone to smile at him, he only needed his teachers to show him how to be better, how to be the best. Compliments and warm affection were never given freely, and he had learned to be frugal when it came to such emotional transactions. If he needed to feel something, there was always the studio and the endless need to push himself farther and farther beyond his breaking points, leaving limits behind him, only to seek perfection ahead of him on the infinite horizon line. Yes, the dull, wooden floorboards and the glare of too many silver-backed mirrors were all he needed. 

 

. . .

 

At nineteen, freshly promoted to The Royal Ballet’s roster of soloist company members and brimming with pride over being cast in his first productions of Giselle and Le Corsaire, Sherlock met Irene Adler. A graduate of the Vaganova School in St. Petersburg and subsequent soloist at The Kirov, she had eagerly left Russia for a more temperate climate. She was a brash and beautiful woman who was unapologetic about being herself, no matter the situation. Sherlock liked her immediately, though he didn’t say as much. She was a fascinating subject to study in class, and he enjoyed seeing her use their fellow company members as playthings. She could bring the prima ballerina to her knees with one look and simultaneously have the ballet master wrapped around her little finger with unfailing ease. Sherlock pondered at how a person who seemed to rather dislike people as a whole could bend them to her will with such dominating abilities.

 

He needn’t have bothered wondering for she soon set her sights on him, only to be utterly disappointed when he revealed himself as being both uninterested in her advances and unflappable to her keen, cunning nature. Sherlock hadn’t meant for this to endear himself to her, but apparently, it had, and he went from being alone every class to having his own shadow at the barre and a new adagio partner during floor work. He allowed for this development because they were well suited for each other, aesthetically speaking. They both possessed the same shade of milky-white alabaster skin which turned to an ethereal blue glow under the stage lights, and they had the same, startling dark color of inky, auburn hair, creating a pleasing contrast of preternatural appeal.

 

The perfect line the two of them created in the studio mirrors, accented by a slash of red from Irene’s lips and a flash of cream satin from the ribbon of her pointe shoes was nothing if not beautiful. Sherlock knew that people found him attractive in an alien way, but the two of them together created an otherworldly combination he couldn’t help but appreciate when photographed for performances. The company heads hailed them as the Fonteyne and Nuryeve for a new generation and advertised them as such. Sherlock went from being a rising star soloist to principal lead in almost every production the company put up and was revered as being the golden child of The Royal Ballet.

 

The love affair of celebrity and success the two of them experienced over the following years consumed Sherlock in a way he hadn’t been prepared for. Suddenly, he was known. People took photos of him on the street as he entered and exited the company’s doors, he was written up in every glossy magazine one could think of with Irene constantly by his side. He always looked brooding, and she always beamed. It began to itch at Sherlock’s skin, this odd sense that something was amiss. He didn’t like being utilized as an accessory to Irene’s daily ensemble, no, but there was something else lurking in those shiny tabloid images, something very telling in Irene’s blood red smile.

 

At the beginning of September in Sherlock’s fifth year with The Royal Ballet and third year of his tenure as their ‘Golden Boy of Ballet’, things finally fell apart. He would later associate the constant simmering anger he felt running through him with the early death of his father, but at the time, he did his best to not dwell on the pain and instead focused all of his emotion into his dancing.

 

The only thing he was certain of during those early autumn weeks of blurred rehearsal schedules and sleepless nights was the need to figure out why Irene, who at the best of times spoke a total of ten words to him a day, was so insistent on being his constant companion. He hadn't minded at first, ignorantly assuming she was allowing him the solitude he so eagerly cultivated around himself but the charade had long lost its novelty. Sherlock had run out of patience when it came to her simpering smiles for the cameras and her cunning ability to both be present in his life and yet completely inconsequential to anything and everything to do with him. 

 

When Sherlock received a call from his mother asking him to join her for tea at The Criterion with his brother, he didn't hesitate in accepting. The seedling of an idea that had planted itself in his brain a year prior had grown into a fully-realised sapling that would not be quelled. He suspected Mycroft had everything to do with Irene's position in his life and with this his mother's invitation, he had his opportunity. 

 

He sat down not an hour later at the cream-linen table in the ancient chair and let the waiter drape a napkin over his lap with an overindulgent gesture he didn't much care for but allowed, and finally fixed his brother with an icy stare. The scene felt much like it had all those years previous upon Sherlock moving into the dormitories of the Upper School on Floral Street. Part of him longed to return to those innocent beginnings, but a larger, more rebellious and dominating part of him wanted to scream and fly as far as he could away from London and all of its mist and fog and conspiracy.  

 

He scowled at Mycroft over the gilded rim of his teacup, his mood sour and his patience, nonexistent.

 

“You certainly have a bee in your bonnet this afternoon, don’t you?” Mycroft said.

 

“Do I? Hmm, must be the company.”

 

“I surely hope you don’t mean me, dear.”

 

Sherlock patted his mother’s delicate, bangle covered wrist. “Obviously.”

 

“Am I being ganged up on? Should I call in reinforcements?”

 

"Do you feel that you need reinforcements?" 

 

"Sherlock, be kind." Siobhan took a sip of tea, her eyes sharp despite the softness of her tone. Sherlock gave her wrist a slight squeeze of affection before retiring his hands to his own lap.

 

"I don't think the word 'kind' factors into Sherlock's range of emotions, mummy." 

 

Sherlock laughed despite his mother's scoff of indignation. 

 

"Quite right, brother. I was trained from a young age to avoid such social niceties." 

 

"And look where it's gotten you," Mycroft said as he toasted Sherlock with the raising of his teacup. 

 

"Yes, look where it has gotten me." Sherlock set his elbows on the table, his hands steepled before his chin. 

 

Mycroft remained silent, Sherlock continued. "You planned all this, didn't you?"

 

“The tea? Well, yes. Reservations are required at such an establishment.”

 

“Shut up. You know what I mean.”

 

Mycroft raised one thin eyebrow in contradiction.

 

“Irene Adler, Mycroft.”

 

“Such a lovely woman. Beautiful dancer,” their mother said behind her teacup. Her sons ignored her.

 

“What are you on about, Sherlock?”

 

“It seems rather convenient to me that I’ve been followed by a small group of very dedicated photographers in very crisp bespoke suits for the past two and a half years running.”

 

“Your celebrity has risen, yes.”

 

“Ballet dancers are not that interesting, Mycroft.”

 

“Sergei Polunin certainly seems to be,” Siobhan added.

 

“Drugs and tattoos, mummy.”

 

Siobhan nodded in agreement. "Well spotted."    

 

“Do hurry and get to your idiotic point, brother mine. The tea is getting cold.”

 

“You’re paying them.”

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

“The photographers. They’re paid to follow me. And Irene is my personal shadow. She hates the ignorance of the human race more than I do, save for the times when her hormones best her and she drags some poor sod to her bed, yet she is miraculously by my side at all hours of the day except when I'm sleeping or in your presence. You’re paying her to report to you.”

 

Mycroft straightened his tie, his forehead boasting a sheen that hadn’t been there several minutes prior.

 

“Deny it,” Sherlock challenged. Mycroft remained silent.

 

The scrape of wooden chair legs on the ancient marble floor echoed throughout the grand space. Sherlock tossed his napkin to the table in a defiant display that did not please his mother.

 

“Pathetic,” he spat in Mycroft’s direction before turning to Siobhan. “You knew, didn't you?”

 

She kept her head held high and her eyes cutting as she started down her son, her thin fingers wrapping themselves around his palm in a fierce grip. “I love you."

 

It was all she said. 

 

Sherlock turned from her water-filled gaze and stalked from the dining hall with a barely contained rage over their betrayal, his long coat flapping behind him in a gust of nonexistent wind. There was familial love, and then there was the overbearing and suffocating reach of Mycroft Holmes, whose paranoia and ego had finally surpassed the girth of his growing waistline. Sherlock was no longer interested in playing puppet on the long strings his brother too-easily controlled from his perch high above Downing Street. To Sherlock, the answer was simple; it was time to leave.

 

Knowing the confrontation with his brother could have gone in two distinct directions, Sherlock had entered the building with two plans in place, both with contingencies, if needed. He set the first option into play with a theoretical flick of his wrist, knocking over the first domino in his mind. In the weeks following his father's death, Sherlock had been in secret talks with American Ballet Theater in New York City. He had corresponded with their Artistic Director, a charming woman and a fellow Brit, named Martha Hudson, whom he’d found rather endearing, despite his normally negative opinion of the older generation. Their quickly developed relationship only encouraged Martha in keeping mum over the preparations for Sherlock to come join the company the following winter. She'd even offered up her home as a place for him to find his bearings when he arrived, which he accepted, silently praising her for her efficiency. She was gaining a world-class principal dancer and he, his freedom. 

 

The plan for next winter flew out the window the moment Mycroft's aristocratic forehead began to show the sheen of his overly active sweat glands. Sherlock knew that immediate action was necessary, if anything for his own sanity. He hastily typed up two e-mails while tearing down Piccadilly at a steady clip, his curls falling into his eyes as he pushed his long legs forwards and onwards. One was sent to Martha Hudson and one to his brother. Each one contained a press release, both with very different outcomes. In Martha's, there was the announcement of Sherlock joining the company sooner than planned, and in Mycroft's, there was the devastating news of one Sherlock Holmes, brother to the oh, so influential Mycroft Holmes, checking into rehab in disgrace for a multitude of sins. 

 

Sherlock was telling his brother to leave him be or suffer the consequences of the scandal he'd fabricate out of thin air, even at his own expense. He was telling Mycroft to let him leave in peace or pay the price. Considering Mycroft had always prided himself on Sherlock's squeaky-clean image, the news of such a rumor would be a deep blow, indeed. 

 

That evening, Sherlock sat in Heathrow with two suitcases at his sides, the glow of his phone illuminating his face from below. He was reading a news article posted to NPR not twenty minutes prior, the headline reading:  _Sherlock Holmes, London’s Golden Boy of Ballet leaps onto the New York Stage in his new role as Principal at ABT._

 

. . . 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

. 

.

.

As always, thanks for reading! 

If you'd like to see some images of the dancers I've mentioned in this chapter I've created a tumblr post here: [X](https://zigster-ao3.tumblr.com/post/173905472787/chapter-6-of-brooklyn-heat-summer-jazz-is-up)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this interim chapter before we get to opening night. I couldn't stop writing Sherlock's backstory these past weeks. 
> 
> The dancers mention in this chapter are as follows: 
> 
> Dame Margot Fonteyn - A true Dame in every sense, she was born in 1919 and passed in 1991, and danced until the age of 60! She had several successful partnerships during her long and celebrated career but her most famous was with Rudolf Nureyev, whom she started dancing with when was 42 and he was 24. I mean, come on! She's such a bad ass! She is a personal favorite of mine, and I love her dearly. We had a massive biography of hers while I was growing up, filled with beautiful black and white images of her dancing throughout the years, that I devoured as a child and young adult. Being an aspiring dancer myself, she was a personal hero. She also had incredible style, being one of the heralders of Dior's 'New Look' that took over Paris in the 40's/50's. I guess you could say she was the Audrey Hepburn of the ballet world, but both are such fierce and wonderful women, I'd hate to compare the two. 
> 
> Rudolf Nureyev - A gorgeous man (picture Cillian Murphy if you don't feel like googling) and a gorgeous soul. He was born in the USSR in 1938 and died in 1993. He danced with all of the great companies, The Marinski Theater, The Kirov, The Royal Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet, I'm pretty sure he did a stint in NYC with ABT as well (he also became artistic director of The Paris Opera Ballet) and choreographed his own interpretations of many classics (including Swan Lake) after he'd retired from dancing professionally. Like many famous Russian ballet dancers during his time, he defected to the West.
> 
> People often say that he was bisexual and ignored the fact that he was a proud gay man in the dance world. The speculation probably comes from rumors that he really wanted to be a father, and back then, adoption wasn't as obvious a choice. He had a long-term relationship with Robert Tracy, an American dancer, until his death. Sadly, he paid little attention to the devastation of the AIDS virus that swept Paris in the 80's and tested positive for HIV in 1984. He ignored his diagnosis and kept working, determined to not let anything slow him down but at the age of 54 he succumbed and passed away in his beloved Paris.
> 
> My aunt had an encounter with him on the streets of New York back in the glorious days of ballet ruling the world. She was standing, waiting for the light to change on Fifth Avenue when she looked to her right and saw that this famous Russian Ballet star was standing next to her. She spluttered and flailed her arms in amazement before shouting, 'Baryshnikov!' Rudolf, being the gentleman that he was, simply smiled at her and gave her a deep bow with a grand sweep of his arm and said, 'Nureyev.' The light had turned green at the point and he walked off, and she stared in awe after him. I just love that story! 
> 
> (Side note: Mikhail Baryshnikov is another famous (equally as famous) Russian Ballet dancer who defected to the West and became an international dancing star. He's starred in many films, became the artistic director of ABT, created The White Oak Dance Project, and now works out of studio space in Hell's Kitchen in NYC, helping to cultivate young artists and their creations. His nickname is Misha, I've had a crush on him since the age of 12, and he's glorious.) 
> 
> Last but not least, Sergei Polunin: The Sherlock Fandom certainly knows this name, he is the dancer behind the GORGEOUS dance video directed by David LaChapelle entitled 'Take Me To Church' named after the Hozier song of the same name. I'm pretty sure everyone I know who has spoken to me about the 'balletlock' sub-genre of Johnlock, cites Sergei as being a Sherlock stand-in because he's beautiful, a bad boy, and an INCREDIBLE DANCER! I feel the need to reiterate how amazing this man actually is. . . I can't imagine how incredible he'd be if he hadn't let his rebellious nature run away him and focused his energies on dancing as opposed to partying and drugs. I'm sure most of you know, but in case you don't, there is a fascinating documentary about him called 'Dancer,' which I think you can rent it through Amazon if you'd like to see more of this beautiful human writhing on the floor with his shirt off. I mean, if you'd like to witness the gloriousness of ballet first hand. Of course. 
> 
> Whew! Okay, I'm done with nerding out over ballet culture. Can you tell I'm a dork? I mean, yeah. 
> 
>  
> 
> So! What did you think? Was that uni kid, John?! *gasp*!! Or just a young man in a sports uniform who happened to catch Sherlock's eye? 
> 
> I'll leave you to your deductions. 
> 
> -Zigs


	7. Stumbling Forward: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe a great deal of gratitude to @Nottoolateforthegame and @MandaPanda8 for their help in beta'ing/encouragement with this chapter. Thank you, ladies. 
> 
> Fair warning, the 'some angst' tag refers to this chapter. Proceed with caution and perhaps a bracing cup of tea or dram of whisky.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The morning after opening night found Sherlock staring blindly at the plaster ceiling above him, eyes unfocused, thoughts racing. He had not slept, his mind never ceasing in its insistent review of the evening’s performance and the events that followed. He couldn't stop assessing where things had gone right, where they’d gone wrong, variables that couldn’t be controlled vs. the inevitable hiccups that came with the first night of any production.  

 

Sherlock had never adhered to such superstition, but he’d readily admit that performing to an empty theater one afternoon and then suddenly being faced with a packed house full of warm, breathing, energy-filled bodies that same evening would cause a shift in atmosphere that could (and often did) throw the less seasoned performers off their game.

Sherlock had always been immune to this phenomenon, never once having to deal with the internal frustration of missing a beat or fumbling a step during a performance . . . that is, until the opening night of _Opus Jazz_.

 

. . .

 

The cause of his flummox had been set into motion the day prior when Mr Baynes made an eleventh hour, critical change to the production: he wanted John on stage for the ballet’s last movement. It was the first, and only true divergence he made from the original stage direction Robbins had set in place over fifty years earlier. No one called him on the blatant alteration, and to Sherlock’s abject and immediate disappointment, Mrs. H had clapped her hands with exaggerated joy at the proposition.

 

Ever since John had sassed Mr. Baynes over the virtues of improvising, the pair of them had formed a strange bond. They chatted incessantly, sharing and trading anecdotes on their love of all-things-New-York-in-the-60s. Sherlock often spotted them exchanging records and books on the topic after rehearsals. One such book was a personally signed copy of Allen Ginsberg’s _Howl and Other Poems_ , which John instantly cherished, much to Sherlock’s displeasure. He couldn’t remember reading anything by this Ginsberg person was back in school, nor did he understand why a book of dry poetry was so astounding to John.

 

“Who’s Gainsbourg?” he asked Molly.  

 

She looked up at him, amusement clear in her eyes. “Ginsberg.”

 

“Yes. That’s what I said. Who is he?”

 

Molly smiled and shook her head, floating away from him on an air of soft laughter. He stared after her a deep crease forming between his brows. Sherlock hated not knowing - it was infuriating. He quickly walked to the corner of the studio, delving into his bag to retrieve his phone and searched the internet to surprising results.

 

Howl, indeed.

 

The day before opening, the tenuous thread of rational thought linked to John inside Sherlock’s mind snapped. He watched John place a thermos of honeyed-tea and one of his prized jazz albums into the arthritic hands of Mr Baynes as a thank you for the poetry, and suddenly, the walls of the studio glowed red. He hated someone else being the center of John’s attention, even if that someone was an aging, (thankfully) straight man whom Sherlock could easily outwit, out dance and out fuck any day.  

 

Sherlock steered clear of John for the rest of that morning. Preferring instead to sulk in darkened corners and brood with his hands folded across his chest.

 

And then Mr Bayens’ brilliant idea for the final piece of the production lit up the theater with its inspirational allure and all Sherlock could do was bite hard on his bottom lip to keep a cry of bitter laughter at bay. He felt Molly’s delicate hand wrap its way around his forearm, and he looked down at her as Mrs H cheered on in the background. Molly smiled up at him, the compassionate look in her eyes blatant with understanding. Sherlock tucked his chin in a tight nod of appreciation and mouthed a silent _thank you_ to her; she was saving him from himself. The gentle pressure of her fingers kept him in line and he was grateful for her presence at his side. If he survived this day, Sherlock resolved to send her a ridiculously gauche bouquet of flowers from Mrs H’s favorite florist.

 

“We’ll put him in a white tee, sleeves rolled, and cuffed jeans. You’ll look just like the rest of them. Sarah, can we get wardrobe for him?”

  
Sarah, the (somewhat frazzled) assistant, nodded at Mr Baynes' request, and scribbled the addition in her ever-present notebook. Sherlock scowled, holding onto Molly with a fierce grip and an unspoken plea, _slap me if you must._ He felt ridiculous for his erratic jealousy, but emotions concerning other people were rather new to him and having them flood his system all at once was an overwhelming experience he’d yet to comprehend.

 

If Sherlock had struggled over the past months with having John as a distraction in the studio while he sat quiet and sentinel behind him in the mirrors, he was surely going to set something on fire with the agitation burning inside him over having John placed front and center on stage during a live performance. He’d much prefer him being left to relative obscurity in the bowels of the pit with the rest of orchestra.

 

The fates were against him, it seemed, as Sarah brought over a red handkerchief to tie around John’s neck as if he were some rogue beatnick pirate who happened to have a piano on the upper deck of an artfully decaying ship. He hated how good it looked on him, the red making the blonde of his hair stand out against the slight tan of his skin.

 

Sherlock grimaced at the sight of Sarah tousling that ashy-blonde hair with what was assuredly an unnecessary amount of attention, making it more of a mess than normal and throwing his glasses askew. They laughed as John righted them, the sound trickling over the stage towards Sherlock like shards of shattered glass. He had to get out. He launched himself into the wings before he could allow himself to entertain the idea of tearing Sarah’s matte black fingernails off one by one a moment longer.

 

Mrs H looked at Molly with an arched eyebrow and she shrugged back at her, awkward and small, murmuring something about Sherlock’s urgent need for the loo in regards to his sudden departure. Mr Baynes ignored the disturbance, reassembling the small group of dancers with a snap of his fingers and telling them where to start in the second movement.

 

Sherlock continued his avoidance of John well into the night, ignoring the invitation to go out for post-rehearsal noshes and drinks with the cast, much to John’s confusion and understandable disappointment. He watched Sherlock stalk away down the dampened pavement towards the subway, his head high, his curls bouncing with each long stride. John found himself frowning at the sight of Sherlock moving farther and farther away from him, feeling adrift and not knowing exactly why. What had happened in the past few days to make Sherlock’s demeanor turn so cold towards him after they’d come so far? They’d finally discovered what they could be to each other and yet John felt more untethered than ever, his exotic bird leaving him behind.

 

Returning home at half eleven, fueled by the smoky-sweet burn of his favorite Scotch still fresh on his lips, John pounded on the door of Sherlock’s room. His frustration over Sherlock’s odd behavior having melted into the tired edge of anger during his sobering walk home. They’d spent precious little time in each other’s company since their first night together due to rehearsal schedules and Sherlock’s bizarre sleeping habits, and the lack of time together in the interim days weighed heavily on John’s shoulders.

 

“What the hell is going on?” John shouted through the door of Sherlock’s room, which he’d locked like some petulant child.

 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

 

“Open up.”

 

“No.”

 

“ _Sherlock_.”

 

The name was a warning, but rather than trigger caution within him, all it did was make his skin prickle with alert attention, his heart rate spiking at the implications in the edge of John’s voice.  

 

“Are you commanding me to open my door?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Sherlock didn’t move, defiant as ever. After a full minute, he heard a thud behind his door and wondered if it was a fist or the resigned collide of John’s weary head. When the sound repeated a moment later, sullen and despondent, Sherlock had his answer: the head.

 

Minutes passed with nothing. No further demands, no further thudding, and then suddenly, a resounding slam of piano keys cut through the quiet of the house. Sherlock jolted, standing instantly from his bed and striding to the door to rip it open.

 

“It is practically midnight!”

 

“So?” John called over the loud cascades of rhythm he was forcing out of the piano’s depths.

 

“You’re insane.”

 

John’s hands stilled and he looked back at Sherlock, his face placid.

 

“You opened the door.”

 

Sherlock scoffed and moved to turn back but John was faster, he surrounded him, arms circling his waist and shoving him back into the sofa cushions. Sherlock landed hard, his curls flying back off his forehead, eyes wide with shock. John leaned in, arms braced on either side of Sherlock’s shoulders, crowding him.

 

“That was rude, John.”

 

John huffed a laugh. “It was necessary.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Tell me what’s bothering you, Sherlock. I’ve allowed you your space, but you’ve been downright hostile today. What did I do?”

 

“Nothing,” he lied. “I’m aloof, John. You know that.”

 

“No, you’re a melodramatic child. And you’re pissed at me.”

 

“I’m not _pissed_.”

 

“Ha! Right.”

 

Sherlock glared. John leaned in closer and then tilted his head, realisation dawning.

 

“Is this about Mr Baynes?”

 

“No.”

 

“Liar.”

 

Sherlock shook his head, closing his eyes tight and trying to hold back his irrational anger before the words burst forth from his mouth without warning. “It’s about you!”

 

“What?”

 

“You. Your very existence. John Hamish Watson - The Fucking Troubadour. You sat down at that piano bench back in June and fucked everything up.”

 

“Excuse me?” John stepped back and placed his hands on his hips. “I somehow managed to fuck up your life by existing?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Bullshit.”

 

Sherlock stood and stepped into John’s space. “I beg your pardon?”

 

“Bull. Shit. I've done nothing to you.”

 

Sherlock crossed his arms and arched an elegant eyebrow. His head high and nose impossibly long as he stared down the length of it at John. There were no words forthcoming, but his expression was so pointed and clear that John took a step back, stunned into silence. His anger slowly abated while dread pooled in its place.

 

“What are you saying, Sherlock?”

 

“Clearly, John, I’m not saying anything.”

 

John shifted, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Oh yes, you are, your face is saying a lot.”

 

“Really?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow, intentionally cruel.

 

“That night . . . our night . . . what did you think that was, Sherlock?”

 

“What am I supposed to think?”

 

“Bloody fucking everything! You’re the genius! How can you not see--” John cut himself off, turning away from the sudden stranger standing in front of him.  

 

Sherlock watched John’s world crumble as he paced the carpet before him and some small part of him relished the power he held over the man at that moment. The rest of him burned with self-loathing at ever making John Watson feel inferior. Despite his internal remorse, he prodded further.

 

“Why did you come here?”

 

John looked up, a flash of anger returning to his eyes. “Excuse me?”

 

“Why. Did you. Come here?” Sherlock repeated, his words sharp.

 

John snapped, throwing his hands in the air. “To fuck your life up, I guess!” and then sagged with exhaustion. “Why are you doing this?”

 

There was a suspended beat hanging in the space between them, a singular moment when Sherlock wanted to take John into his arms and hold him, kiss his temples, run his hands through his impossible hair and sooth all the hurt he’d placed upon him. Instead, in a small voice, he confessed, “because you walked through that door back in June and my life hasn’t been the same since.”

 

He’d meant the words to be a balm, a penitence. Instead, they spurred John into a painful retreat. 

 

“Fine, Sherlock,” John said, his voice tired, defeated. “Have it your way.”

 

John made to leave the room and Sherlock panicked, his arms reaching, hands grasping for a hold on John, but he wrenched his hand free from Sherlock’s grasp. The pain Sherlock had caused was painted across John’s face in violent, dark strokes. They were etched deeply between his eyes and around his mouth.

 

“Sherlock.” John stared directly into his eyes, refusing to look elsewhere. “You were . . . you were never . . .” his voice failed him and he ran a hand over his haggard face, shoving his glasses into his hair. “I would stay for you.”

 

John looked up, his gaze faltering at whatever he saw reflected back at him in Sherlock’s eyes. “Christ, you don’t even know, do you?”

 

“What don’t I know?”

 

John’s lips tightened, a smile cut short of its full intent, a grimace held back with effort.

 

A beat passed. Then two. Three. A final measure; a coda.

 

Sherlock turned into a statue in front of John, his mind falling elsewhere, attempting to riddle out what John had inferred. Sherlock’s pale eyes focused on John and yet looked right through him, beyond him at something only Sherlock could see.

 

John’s anger bled out of him at Sherlock’s ensuing silence, leaving only regret and stabbing guilt in its wake. He nodded and turned from the room, closing the doors behind him with a dull thud that sparked Sherlock back to the present. He blinked at the closed doors, the lack of heat in the room, and the absence of John. He immediately wanted John back. He wanted his fierce strength and fighting will. He wanted him to rail and scream at him for being a jealous, selfish idiot, to fight for him, to explain to him what he’d meant, as opposed to his resigned, quiet departure. It was all wrong. Everything about what just happened had been wrong. John was right, Sherlock was a child. And he hated himself for it, he hated the emotions coursing through him and all of their unstoppable, telling baggage they carried with them.

 

Sherlock had been a fool.

 

John hadn’t fucked-up Sherlock’s life. On the contrary, he’d brought a fire and vitality and adventure and something fucking interesting into Sherlock’s stilted, stifling world. He’d made his days worth living and for one, staggeringly perfect evening, he showed him what it was to truly feel. He’d been numb before John.

 

He stared at the empty space before him, hearing John’s last words repeat in his head, _you don’t even know, do you?_

 

What had he meant?

 

“John,” he said, sad and small. The sound echoed softly in the room and then dissipated into the silence of the house. Sherlock had never felt more alone. 

. 

.

.

* * *

 

 

 

This is a two-part chapter. The second part just needs a final edit and is ready to go. In the second part, we actually get to opening night (yay) and resolution is much happier (double yay). I promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading. Please leave me a comment (even if it's a shouting howler of a comment, I understand) or some kudos love if you feel so inclined. :) 
> 
> For shites and giggles, here's one of the most erotic (read: my favorite) parts of Howl, the Ginsberg poem mentioned in the chapter. Also, if you haven't read Howl in its entirety, wtf? It's legendary. Go read it. Now.
> 
> "who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,  
> who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,  
> who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,  
> who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,  
> who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may,  
> who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword," 
> 
> Detectives and blond angels. :) How perfectly fitting.


	8. Stumbling Forward: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We make it to opening night. Finally.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sherlock heard the pounding of the footfalls on the stairs before his eyes could even open to see John tear into the room, chest heaving and hair an utter mess of tangles on his head.

 

“Did you sleep in the hammock again?” Sherlock asked, raspy and groggy from his reclined position on the hearth carpet. His reality had yet to right itself and he found himself smiling at the chaos of John’s hair and the red marks on his cheek indicating that he’d laid on his left-hand side.

 

John blinked at him in confusion. “Did you . . .  sleep on the floor? No, wait. It doesn’t matter. Get up. It’s half eleven!”

 

John's shirt was hanging open, exposing his tan torso. Sherlock licked his lips. 

 

"Sherlock!"

 

"What?"

 

"The theater. We have to be at the theater by one."

 

Sherlock’s eyes bulged in alarm and he shot up off the rug, willing his legs into a standing position. How on earth had he slept that long? And where the hell was Mrs H? Surely she should be bustling about the house with fresh flowers in every vase and champagne bottles cooling in the wine fridge, and bagels being delivered from the bakery for an indulgent, carb-filled breakfast. Yet, none of that was happening around him.

 

John was shoving him towards the shower with rough hands on his oversensitive skin. Surely he'd leave bruises if he wasn't more careful. Sherlock realised that he wanted him to.

 

He was about to step over the threshold of the bathroom door when he turned back and blurted, “But, the bagels, John.”

 

“What the hell are you even saying? Go!”

 

Sherlock glowered and closed the door in John’s face with a satisfying slam. It was only when he looked in the mirror, seeing the tell-tale signs of every word not said to the man he’d just left behind in the other room, that the previous day’s events came racing back to him on an overwhelming wave of self-loathing. Sherlock tore his guilt-stricken eyes away from the mirror and retched into the basin of the sink.

 

“Sherlock?” John’s voice was hesitant, worried, and Sherlock despised him for sounding so concerned. He didn't deserve it. 

 

“I’m fine.”

 

He ripped a flannel off his its hook and wiped his mouth, his mind compartmentalising every aspect of the previous evening into three small boxes he could examine later. For now, he needed to focus, he needed to get to the theater.

 

. . .

 

They shared a cab, though they didn’t speak. John remained silent and stoic across the back seat from him, his hands two balls of tension in his lap. Sherlock could smell his shampoo, fresh and bright in the stale air of the cab and he wanted to lean into that scent. He wanted to cover himself with it and take it with him onto that stage as a talisman.

 “Cash or card?” The cabbie asked and Sherlock blinked open his eyes in time to see John hand over two twenties and utter keep the change, as he exited curbside. They had arrived. Sherlock followed John with careful steps, watching him the entire time.

“Thank you.”

John’s face betrayed no emotion. He merely nodded and opened the door.

They walked into the theater side by side, though worlds apart. Every silent step made it worse, every unforgiven minute that passed between them caused a greater rift and Sherlock knew that the feeling he was seeking was penitence. Only he could breach the chasm growing steadily between them by accepting his emotions for what they were: a mixture of pure jealousy and unchecked selfishness. He needed to apologise. He needed to speak.

He was terrified.  

Sherlock's gaze fell to John’s hands fisted by his sides. His own fingers itched to reach out and touch John's, but all he could do was stare. He watched, transfixed, as John grabbed ahold of his bag and hoisted it higher on his shoulder. His knuckles were white with tension, his veins standing out in startling relief against his tan skin. It was such a simple movement, an everyday, ordinary inevitability to readjust one’s bag on one’s shoulder and yet, seeing John portraying such a thing made Sherlock ache. He missed him.

John’s warm presence left his side once they reached the seats at the bottom of the theatre’s orchestra section. He stepped away from him without so much as a nod of acknowledgment. Sherlock fought back a whimper of pain at the sight of those beautiful, blonde tangles atop John’s head moving farther and farther from him. There was no sly smile being thrown over his shoulder or a cheeky wink aimed in Sherlock’s direction, just the defiant posture of John’s body, the message of _stay away_ being broadcast loud and clear in the fierce line of his jaw and the tight clench of his hands.  

Sherlock watched as John greeted the other musicians with warm smiles for each. The trumpet player handed him a takeaway cup of what Sherlock assumed to be a strong brew of oolong with honey. The sight made Sherlock wince with its obvious kindness. Why hadn’t Sherlock thought of getting a cuppa for him? It was such a simple thing, such a genuine gesture of friendship. Why hadn’t he ever done that for John before?

“Sherlock?”

It was Molly. The second they locked eyes, he knew that words were not needed. She looked pensively back and forth between him and John and Sherlock saw the correct conclusion come to her within moments. After all, she’d always been smarter than he’d ever given her credit for.

Instead of crumbling, or sighing, or tilting her head with a disgusting display of pity, she nodded, her lips thinning in a determined line. “Well fuck,” she said before tugging him into a tight hug he couldn’t bring himself to not to appreciate. “You’ll fix it. The both of you. But for now . . . “ she trailed off as she pulled back, her eyes seeking Sherlock’s. He nodded at her in understanding: _The Work comes first_.

Mrs H graced the company with her presence (finally) five minutes into their pre-performance warm-up class on the theatre’s stage. She whistled at her dancers with a haughty grin and gave them a small speech on _embracing the moment_ and _living through the movement_ as if they truly were all teenagers on the brink of exploring their newly-found sexual natures.  

Sherlock nodded along with his fellow dancers, suspecting that her little pep-talk was aimed at him in particular. He stole a glance sideways to where John sat behind the practice piano on stage left, his true expression hidden behind a polite smile. Sherlock willed him to find his gaze, and by some miracle, John did, his storm-blue eyes locking with Sherlock’s as Mrs H urged them all to be bold and not to shy away from all those raw, messy emotions because where there's pain, there's also beauty. She ended by giving praise to Jerome Robbins himself, and the pure freedom and celebration of youth his choreography encapsulated.

The sounds of the company’s clapping roused Sherlock from the silence that fell around him as he held tight to John’s gaze with his own eyes. He wanted John to see every emotion he’d been too cowardly to express over the past few days. He wanted to tell him so much and yet a stage, twelve dancers, one ballet master, a company director and an entire orchestra sat between them like an ocean's worth of ripping tides. Sherlock screamed inside, his leg muscles breaking from their inertia to bring him closer to John.

The moment Sherlock’s foot twitched forward towards the piano, John blinked, and the spell was broken. Sherlock halted, his chest heaving as those storm-blue eyes looked away.

John’s attention turned to await Mr Baynes’ instruction on what adagio to play for the center floor warm-ups, leaving Sherlock adrift in the middle of the stage. In that moment, when John’s gaze fell away from his, something inside Sherlock shattered. He couldn’t place the source of the fresh pain within him but it was enough to make him bend over in shocked silence, gasping at the invisible wound. He felt as if he were bleeding internally, and didn’t know how to stem the flow. It pooled in his belly and mixed with his cache of self-hatred that lived there, leaving him nauseous and wrecked the rest of the afternoon.

 

It wasn’t until the fourth movement of the ballet’s performance that evening, under the burning multicolored lights and the dripping of his own sweat that he finally realised what had shattered earlier on the very same stage - it was his heart. Sherlock's mouth fell open in a silent _O_ as he felt the fact solidify like the most obvious of truths - Sherlock Holmes had fallen for John Watson.  

 

The revelation caused Sherlock to experience the first ever flummoxing of a performance. In his shock, he tripped.

 

Stumbling forward with too much momentum, he turned the misstep into a somersault of a tumble, landing at the footlights and throwing his arms wide, much to the audience’s delight. They clapped and hollered at his display before he leapt up and rejoined his fellow dancers snapping to the music behind him. 

 

He could see Molly watching him from her spot on stage right and he nodded, quelling her constant worry. She'd been fussing over him all afternoon but she needn't have bothered. Sherlock’s entire world had fallen into place with that stumble and he had the presence of mind to finally put a name to it.

 

For the first time in Sherlock’s solitary life filled with rigorous self-discipline and unending dedication to his chosen profession, which kept him at arm’s length from all of society, he’d found what it felt like to have a companion.

 

Sherlock Holmes had found love.

 

He breathed in deeply at the thought, allowing the music coming from the pit, and subsequently from John’s very fingertips, to fill him with the joy he’d never once allowed himself to see up until that glorious moment. As the applause grew and the curtains clamped down the dusty floor in front of him, signaling the end of the fourth piece, and the two minute mark to the final movement of the ballet, Sherlock grinned like a fool with a heartstruck thought: if there was a world where John Watson did not exist, Sherlock Holmes surely did not want to be apart of it. 

 

. 

.

.

* * *

 

If y'all would like to watch 'the fourth movement' of NY Export: Opus Jazz that was mentioned in this chapter (and why perhaps a somersault in the middle of it wouldn't throw an audience) here's [a youtube link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfcVj3ivC4s&t=63s). Enjoy! 

They call it 'a ballet in sneakers' for a reason. :) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There! That's a more hopeful ending to a chapter, right?  
> This story continues to grow longer and longer.  
> The next chapter will conclude this story, and the final chapter will be an epilogue of sorts. 
> 
> This is the current plan!  
> Things may change.  
> But as for now. You have two more chapters heading your way. I hope you enjoy them.  
> As always, thanks for reading!


	9. Accepting Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, okay, I couldn't fiddle with this chapter anymore. It just it what it is at this point. There are limits to the number of times one can tweak a single sentence . . . and if not there should be. 
> 
> Thank you all of you guys for your patience! This is it! We're basically there, this is the happy ending you've all been waiting for, with the exception of one more epilogue chapter to follow. (Which will still end happily, don't worry.) I was going to end this guy on a cliffhanger but decided to be a good person and not do that to y'all, so all that extra bit of drama and action will occur in the epilogue and for now, you can enjoy the sickening fluff of the chapter below. :) 
> 
> Thank you to @nottoolateforthegame for being a wonderful beta, and a special thanks to @lediona25 for extra hand-holding and encouragement while I struggled to get this chapter out to you. I hope it was worth the wait. *bites nails*

 

This chapter takes place directly after the last. We're heading into the final piece of the opening night performance, folks! 

. 

.

.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Sherlock scanned the hallway in search of Molly. She was always pressed, dressed and ready for her cue before everyone else and he knew she’d be waiting nearby as soon as he’d exited the men’s dressing room.

 

“Sherlock!” He heard in a stage whisper to his right. He turned and there she was, wringing her hands, ponytail twitching agitatedly behind her head as if it had a life of its own. In three long strides, Sherlock had caught up to her, and engulfed her in a bone-crushing hug. His smile could charge the power grid for the entire city, he was beaming so bright.

 

“Molly!”

 

“What happened?” she asked, clearly worried about his trip-into-spontaneous-tumble from earlier. Despite this being a perfectly reasonable question, Sherlock ignored her quandary in favor of snuggling his pointy chin into her bony shoulder.  

 

“I’m a sentimental idiot in love, Molly.”

 

Molly pushed back from his (surprising to begin with) embrace. “What?”

 

“John, Molly. I love him!” He stated this as if it were the most profound and wonderful bit of information he could bestow upon anyone, mixed with a general air of being unable to comprehend the foreign words slipping across his tongue. It was all rather bewildering to Molly, having to witness more emotion play across Sherlock’s face in one moment than compared to the entire three years she’d been working with him combined.

 

She blinked several times, before responding with the only thing she could think of to say. “Okay.”

 

“Yes, it’s brilliant, isn’t it?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Sherlock squeezed her arms, his excitement infectious. Molly couldn’t help but mirror the overwhelming sight of his broad smile as he celebrated his newly found joy. She’d never seen him so buoyant, so light. He looked like a child at Christmas - filled with eager innocence and purity and wonder all rolled into one. She couldn't help but be happy for him.

 

The rest of their castmates had filed in next to them by then and, oblivious to Sherlock’s revelation, brought an end to their candid conversation. Two rows of professional dancers costumed as teenage rebels in tight white t-shirts, skinny blue jeans and converse sneakers, stood side by side with their backs straight and their heads high. They were ready for the final battle to commence. The humidity emanating from their warm bodies weighed heavy in the air, mingling with the anticipation of the soon-to-be-completed performance. It was a heady feeling, one that did not go amiss by anyone standing in the wings. Sherlock wondered if John could feel the shock of electricity that rippled past them all, a collective spasm of kinetic energy ready to take off.

 

In the last few moments before their cue, Sherlock rolled his sleeves up to his shoulders, seeking some sense of relief from the backstage heat. His fingers itched at his sides and his toes wiggled in their shoes; he wanted to be onstage, he wanted to dance. He wanted to see John.

 

He nodded to Greg, who stood watch behind the curtain. An unlit cigarette dangled from his lips with a headset nestled in the waves of his salt n’ pepper hair - he looked the perfect definition of an Established New York Artistic Eccentric and he knew it. He motioned to the dancers to form a queue after the signal of _‘places_ ’ echoed through his headphones. One by one, he ushered them, whispering ' _merde'*_ to each dancer on their way to the stage. When it was Molly’s turn to step up beside him, her cheeks already a telling shade of pink, he winked. In response, Sherlock was almost certain he heard her squeak.

 

Sherlock took his place upon the dusty black floor, his fingers twiddling along the seam of his jeans with excess energy. He stole a glance towards his right, seeing John at his piano, head bowed towards the music with his hair a riot of blonde tangles glowing blue under the stage lights. His red handkerchief was tied artfully about his neck, distinguishing him from the other dancers. The sight caused another shock of electricity to shoot down Sherlock’s spine and he bounced on the balls his feet in response, wringing his hands to shake off the feeling.

 

God damn his sentimental heart but he loved that ridiculous, renegade gypsy.

 

He wanted to reach out and pull the knot free from John’s throat, exposing his skin to Sherlock’s mouth. He wanted to drag that white t-shirt off his muscled arms, licking stripes of ownership along every tendon. He wanted to kneel before John in supplication, allowing John to use him as he saw fit. Sherlock ached with the overwhelming need of wanting the man who sat ten feet away and simultaneously an ocean’s divide from him.

 

Sherlock’s attention came back to him as the opening notes of music filled the air, the piece having been altered to allow the piano to lead the main themes. A collective breath was taken on stage as the dancers all fell into the movement, performing the choreography with glee and fervor. This was what a dancer lived for - blood pumping through their veins in perfectly rhythmic counts of eight, their bodies working on pure muscle memory, the energy of the crowd coursing through them, pushing them onward to the very end.  The adrenaline of it all felt akin to taking a hit of the purest drug, a floating high from which Sherlock never wanted to come down.

Despite the rush, it did not pass Sherlock’s notice that John refused to look up from his pages. He curved in on himself over the piano, his shoulders hunching and shifting with tension as he pounded the keys into submission. The audience must have been torn between watching the dancers dominate the stage, bringing Jerome Robbins’ choreography to life with perfect precision, and the way with which John Watson made those piano keys bend to his will. Sherlock couldn’t keep his eyes off him, which was not ideal considering he needed to concentrate.  

 

Sherlock lept into the air, landing softly on his right leg in a deep pilé. His left leg swept around to pull him into a tight spin, his eyes focusing on John as he whipped his head around to stay balanced. One second Sherlock was looking at the blonde tangles of John’s hair and the next, he was seeing those dark blue eyes focus on his own. Sherlock swallowed hard, his mouth opening into a questioning ‘O’ of surprise. He watched John hesitate in response, the lines of his mouth going tight with barely controlled emotion. The air hung heavy between them, John at his keys and Sherlock light on his feet as he danced, their eyes remaining the only point of contact between them.

 

It was dangerous, this charade. Sherlock could miss a step, John could miss a chord. Something needed to happen, Sherlock could feel the anticipation building but couldn’t deduce the correct course of action. He twisted into another pirouette, his gaze breaking from John’s for an eighth of a second as his head spun around again. When Sherlock focused on John once more, he watched in pure amazement as the man seemed to make a decision mid-measure, his lips pulling into a cheeky half grin. And then, inexplicably, John winked at him.

 

God, that man. He was bold as brass and beautiful as ever, and Sherlock couldn’t take it anymore. Sherlock Holmes had had enough.

 

He stalked towards John on solid, strong, decided legs, his head tilted back just so on his neck, his hips jutting forward with the hormone-filled swagger of every Romeo that came before him. Reaching his prize seated at the piano, he leaned down, crowding into John’s space, and nuzzling his nose against the sensitive skin just behind John’s ear. He made sure to position his body facing downstage so that the entire audience could see the lust he held for John spilling out of every fingertip, every pore. He made sure they could see the long swipe of his tongue as he licked the shell of John’s ear and trailed his hands through his riotous blonde tangles. He wanted them all to _know._

 

“What are you doing?” John rasped, his whisper harsh and frantic as Sherlock nipped his ear with sharp, determined teeth. Somewhere in the audience, a person whistled at the display.

 

“Improvising.”

 

Sherlock leaned back just enough to see a look of awe on John’s astonished face before he moved in to close his lips over John’s, sealing his wonder with a kiss.

 

The audience roared with applause and Sherlock grinned, breaking away in time to return John's wink before turning towards his fellow dancers and rejoining their ranks. John somehow managed to keep playing a syncopated beat on the keys, maintaining a rhythm for them to move by, and the final piece played on with a new level of added fervour to its choreography. That kiss had spurred something in the dancers, sparking a frenzy that ignited the movement beyond the telling of a story to the burning of an eternal feeling of youth and love and freedom. Mrs H had been right, after all.

 

And when the lights dimmed, and the final notes of the score sounded throughout the theater, signaling the end of the ballet’s opening-night performance, the audience repaid the beauty and joy they’d just witnessed in kind with an overwhelming cascade of uproarious cheers. The dancers collectively took a surprising step back at the unabashed praise. 

 

Sherlock saw nothing but smiles and white, gleaming teeth as the heavy, weighted curtains parted to allow for one curtain-call, then two, then three. Mr Baynes walked out on stage, holding a bouquet for every female dancer and shaking the hands of each male dancer in turn. He swept his arm, gesturing to the orchestra and the Maestro, who stood and bowed deeply before extending his arms to John up on stage. John brought himself up to his full height with what Sherlock could see were slightly uneasy legs, the din of the continual applause no-doubt zapping him of his performance-filled adrenaline. He bowed once, twice, then sat down hard on the piano bench, shaking his head and laughing at the humbling, yet no doubt, overwhelming experience. 

 

From across the stage, Sherlock couldn't help but clap along with the audience and beam at the only man he ever cared to call his own. He wolf-whistled on a whim, just to see John blush at the praise, and smiled madly at John’s flushed-faced reaction.

 

“I love you, John Watson,” he said over the din of the hollering crowd. To Sherlock’s astonishment, John turned to look at him at that moment, his eyes filled with a joy he’d never seen before. Sherlock said it again, now that he had John’s attention, mouthing the words as clearly as he could manage. “I love you.”

 

John grinned back at him, and the audience clapped on.  

.

.

.

* * *

 

As always, thank you for reading. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Merde - literally means 'shit' in French. It's a tradition that all ballet dancers tell each other Merde before heading onto the stage. It's their way of wishing each other luck for the performance. 
> 
> Also, French-speaking, shaggy-haired, salt n' pepper Greg. *sigh* Pardon me while I melt.
> 
> Please leave me some comment love if you feel so inclined. It spurs me on to write more. :)

**Author's Note:**

> American Ballet Theater is a real ballet company based out of New York City. There are two major companies in Manhattan, ABT and New York City Ballet. NYCB always came across to me as much more rigid and classical and ABT has a more modern and 'young' feeling with a larger roster of international dancers. The irony is, the ballet that will be featured in the second half of this story was reworked a couple of years ago for NYCB and not ABT. Oh well! Yay for artistic license! 
> 
> ABT is used here in name only, all of the descriptions of studios or dance instructors/masters are fabricated for the story or worked around existing Sherlock Holmes canon characters.


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